Star Trek Hunter Ep 16: Slavers
by RobertBruceScott
Summary: The Orion Slave Syndicate is causing problems for the Federation and the U.S.S. Hunter's new tactical squad is sent to rescue Justice Minerva Irons grandson-in-law from slavery... But the Federation has much, much bigger problems than the Orions...
1. Ep 16x1: By the Seat of their Pants

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 1: Flying By the Seat of their Pants  
.

16.1  
Flying By the Seat of their Pants  
.

Probably the most sophisticated and elegant of all Maquis inventions was the atmosphere specific flight suit. It had been invented to provide the Maquis rebels a nearly untraceable method for inserting a large strike force onto a planet from space. The garment's outer layer was a temporary EVA suit, which could provide up to ten hours protection in open space, but was designed to gradually ablate on entry into a planetary atmosphere. The heat of ablation provided power to a micro inertial dampener, designed to slow the descent of the wearer without registering on a sensor as anything more energetic than an average meteor.

By the time the wearer entered the middle atmosphere, the outer suit was designed to fall away and ablate entirely, while the micro-dampener, before being destroyed with the suit, was designed to slow the wearer sufficiently for deployment of a triangular fixed wing, controlled by hands and feet, allowing a very long glide capability so that the wearer – now a pilot – could glide for hundreds of kilometers to seek their preferred landing zone. A set of levers allowed the pilot to gradually open a number of billows built into the fabric of this wing, providing controlled drag to enable a horizontal landing on skids that were deployed beneath the pilot. The entire wing structure was designed to be disassembled on landing for reuse either in its original capacity or for other purposes.

.

While these suits had been designed and a few hundred had been manufactured for a space-to-ground assault, the Maquis never used them for this purpose and the prototypes were eventually sold as escape modules. Pomm Irons had long ago purchased three of these and stored them on the B.R. Prophet Motive in hopes they would never be needed.

.

Neither Pivin nor Oarama Irons had ever donned these suits before and there was no training program. Just a tag with alarmingly optimistic pictograms. These flight suits, crafted by Maquis rebels in hastily prepared workshops on outlawed colonies, had a distinctly homemade appearance to them. The two women struggled into them, having to experiment with the inner and outer portions to get them to fit correctly while the runabout's pilot, a massively obese bajoran male, made one wild turn after another, trying to evade phaser fire from a small cloud of orion interceptors and at the same time avoid the massive walls and columns of energized plasma that characterized the Badlands.

.

In desperation, Pomm Irons launched first the elderly romulan woman, then his (primarily) cardassian wife into space from the Prophet Motive's torpedo launcher, before angling the large runabout to avoid another plasma burst. Phaser fire from pursuing orion interceptors sparked off the yellow runabout's shields and intersected with the surrounding plasma storm, adding bright laces of energy to the energetic fields of ignited stellar gasses that made the Badlands so dangerous for navigation – and a favorite hiding place not only for the Maquis rebels, but for outlaws and refugees of every description. And, now that the Maquis rebel forces had been devastated in the War with the Dominion, no one was left to protect the tens of thousands of refugees who sheltered behind the plasma storms. The Badlands had become a rich hunting ground for green-skinned orion slavers.

.

As their ship and only home swerved away from them in a futile attempt to escape a dozen orion interceptors, Pivin and Oarama, with only their flimsy, homemade EVA suits between them and the cold of space, had to adjust their flight pattern to pass through eddies in the plasma bursts that were far too small for a ship, but easily large enough for an EVA suit to pass through.

One of the orion interceptors that had been hot on Pomm's tail diverted course to follow the two women. The hole in the plasma burst was just large enough to thread an interceptor through. But the pilot failed to take magnetic interference into account and the plasma interacted with the interceptor's shielding, trapping the small vessel and pulling it up into the plasma storm, where it exploded, feeding its energy into the plasma cloud.

Pivin and Oarama could only adjust their flight through open space with small bursts of gas from the sides of their flight suits. All around them on every side the plasma storm raged in vibrant reds, yellows and greens – energized and electrified by the orion interceptor it had swallowed and was digesting in brilliant cascades of intense blue lightning. For a moment it was easy for them to forget this was a desperate escape and simply admire the raw, energetic beauty of the Badlands.

But a rogue planet was hidden in the middle of all this blazing stellar material – so enveloped in the raging plasma storm that it was nearly impossible to approach by ship. Even a runabout would have great difficulty navigating the storm raging around Vengeons-Roux (as the Maquis had named the planet).

.

Rogue planets were almost invariably frozen, dead planets, but not Vengeons-Roux. The planet's strong magnetosphere protected the atmosphere from the blazing waves of stellar material. The biosphere had survived by adapting to the energy of the raging plasma storm around the planet and small animals hunted by the ever shifting light that at one moment might be close to daylight and in the next moment twilight. Pomm and Oarama had scouted this planet years ago as a possible emergency hideout and had left a stash of supplies and food. They had also sewn a number of hardy and very useful plants to grow wild near these supplies.

.

Following Pomm's scant and hurried instructions, Pivin and Oarama kept at least 500 meters between them as they entered the atmosphere of Vengeons-Roux. They turned their bellies to the atmosphere and watched – their face-masks instantly turning dark to protect their eyes and faces from the intense heat and radiation of their suits ablating into the planet's atmosphere. They could feel the drag of micro inertial dampeners embedded in their flight suits, slowing their descent and cooling them as the remnants of the outer suits broke free and fell below them in trails of flaming debris.

As they deployed their fixed wings above them, the skids that were all that was left of the front of their EVA suits also deployed, providing a counter-balance to their triangular fixed wings, helping to keep them oriented for face-down horizontal flight and a horizontal landing. The inertial dampeners gave them a final lift, then dropped away to be smashed to dust on the ground far below. The flapping of the fabric wings grew louder and gradually provided increased lift as they glided into increasingly dense atmosphere.

After a few hours of synchronized flight, Oarama changed her wing angle and sped ahead of Pivin, then swooped around, slowing again. Pivin followed and the two gradually circled their target landing zone for nearly ten minutes, gradually losing speed and altitude until first Oarama, then Pivin landed on their skids, skidding across nearly 300 meters before grinding to a halt in the large meadow Pomm and Oarama had long ago selected. Oarama was grateful that it still was a meadow.

.

A number of large quadrupeds crept out from the tree line toward the two women as they hurriedly freed themselves from their flight harnesses. The creatures had large heads with large mouths. They walked and stalked somewhat like wolves, spreading out to encircle the two women. The moment Pivin and Oarama stepped free of their flight gear and stood up straight, the animals quickly turned and ran back into the trees.

"They fear bipeds," Pivin observed.

"We're not alone," Oarama concluded.

.  
16.1


	2. Ep 16: Slavers

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers

.

.

Episode 16 – Slavers

.

_ "In the early days of human colonization of the Alpha Quadrant, the Vulcan Space Command prevented human access to habitable planets that had indigenous sentient pre-warp populations. At the same time, they began to open vulcan colonies to a burgeoning spacebound human population. Earth's population had stabilized at about 12 billion. _

_ "Behind the scenes, a number of economic actors, including the vulcans and the denobulans, worked to create incentives for massive human population growth. With an increasing life expectancy, longer fertility periods and being perpetually in heat, humanity had a unique potential for explosive population growth among the species that eventually united to form the Federation. Humans, denobulans and vulcans alike saw the potential for filling up available environments with human populations as a bulwark against potential aggressors – the klingons, the romulans and others._

_ "Their long term plan was to stabilize this population once the boundaries of the Federation were established and potential environments secured. But the genie was not so easily put back into the bottle. Into this runaway population growth came an unanticipated secondary population explosion of hybrids as human genetics leant the gift of human fecundity to other federation species…" _

_Pomm Irons – __The Human Time Bomb__._

.

.

.

Crew of the U.S.S. Hunter: (Ship's Interactive Holographic Avatar - Hunter)

At-Large Appellate Justice, Captain Minerva Irons  
Chief Executive Officer - Commander David Pepper  
Chief Operations Officer - Lt. Commander Mlady

.  
Medical Director - Commander Tali Shae  
. Asst. Medical Director - Lt. Jazz Sam Sinder  
. Epidemiologist - Lt. Napoleon Boles  
.. Ensign Chrissiana Trei  
... Forensic Specialist - Midshipman Sif  
... Emergency Medical Hologram - Dr. Raj  
... Tactical Medical Hologram - Dr. Kim

Director of Flight Operations - Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Dolphin  
. Asst. Flight Dir. - 2nd Lt. Gaia Gamor  
... Navigator Johanna Imex  
... Navigator Eli Strahl  
.. Ensign Ethan Phillips  
... Chief Flight Specialist Dewayne Guth  
... Chief Flight Specialist Thyssi zh'Qaoleq  
... Flight Specialist Dih Terri  
... Flight Specialist Winnifreid Salazaar

Director of Ground Operations - Lt. Tauk  
. Asst. Ground Ops Dir. - 2nd Lt. T'Lon  
... Investigator Buttans Ngumbo  
... Investigator - vacant  
.. Ensign Tolon Reeves  
... Chief Tactical Specialist Rumi Grace  
... Tactical Specialist Dasare Eba  
... Tactical Specialist Veri Geki  
... Tactical Specialist Ranni Neivi

Director of Engineering - Lt. Moon Sun Salek  
. Asst. Engineering Dir. - 2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui  
... Midshipman Tammy Brazil  
... Transporter Engineer K'rok  
.. Ensign Geoffrey Horatio Alstars, Lord Wootton-Sandleigh, Order of Merit  
... Flight Engineer Yolanda Thomas  
... Flight Engineer Thomas Hobbs  
... Flight Engineer Tomos  
... Flight Engineer Kerry Gibbon


	3. Ep 16x2: Possum Chicken

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 2: Possum-Chicken  
.

16.2  
Possum-Chicken  
.

The U.S.S. Milky Way was considerably larger than the old Galaxy class star ships, but had a lower, sleeker profile with the secondary engineering hull located behind the saucer section instead of beneath it and the engine nacelles located out to the sides of the secondary hull instead of above or below. Like the Galaxy class, the Milky Way could be operated with a skeleton crew of 100 and generally required 700 for normal operations. The actual crew complement was 1,231 with an additional 400 Star Fleet cadets, and two basic training units designed to produce a total of 60 enlistees every eight weeks. An additional 2,000 civilians performed functions from weapons and replacement parts manufacture to food production to education and family services. Even with 4,000 people onboard, large sections of the ship were vacant and could be re-purposed for a wide number of uses. The Milky Way was designed to manufacture whatever spare parts or enhancements it required while on missions far from home.

.

Captain Sullivan Cruz, newly promoted and newly assigned to command the U.S.S. Intrepid, on which she had served for the past three years as first officer, was admiring the Milky Way from the bridge of the Intrepid. "Old Possum-Chicken got a pretty serious upgrade," she said.

"Why do you call him 'Possum-Chicken'?" asked her newly assigned pilot, Lt. Shaq Carter.

"Some of the brass at Star Fleet started calling him 'Possum' – as an insult – because that's his favorite game," Cruz replied. "He used it at Wolf 359 when it became evident we were hopelessly outmatched. Every other starship captain fought until the borg destroyed them. Serge played dead until the borg moved on, then rescued more than a hundred crew members from the broken remains of their ships… Rescued me – I was an ensign fresh out of the academy. Most of my shipmates didn't survive. Captain Chekov played possum with the klingons and later the jem'hadar during the Dominion War. He's very good at avoiding a fight. But I watched him use that same tactic to lure a Vor Cha class cruiser into a mine field. He destroyed a top of the line klingon battle cruiser without firing a single shot."

Captain Cruz was in full storytelling mode – half of the officers on her bridge were new and had not heard this story before – and it was a good one. "The name 'Possum-Chicken' comes from a game we played with a pair of klingon birds of prey. It was the aftermath of the Battle for Detapa Council, which ended badly for both us and the klingons. In a vast debris field – the remnants of Star Fleet and Imperial Klingon hulls, two birds of prey were playing dead. With two active birds of prey on the field we couldn't rescue our stranded crew members from the other destroyed ships. So we played dead too – and our three ships were drifting closer. And closer…" Cruz illustrated her story with her hands, demonstrating the relative positions of the ships. "And closer… Those klingons had nerves of steel. So did Serge… At the last minute he ordered our thrusters to full downward thrust and pushed us straight down out of their line of fire just as they opened up with their disrupters and they ended up shooting each other. We burned them both out of our sky without losing a single crew member. Serge won that fight by playing Possum and Chicken at the same time."

"Other Star Fleet captains have more kills. But old Possum-Chicken has rescued more stranded crew members and brought more people home alive than all of them put together. Other Star Fleet captains get medals for valor. Captain Chekov gets to take out the first new ship in every class because he brings his crews home alive and his ships home in one piece," Cruz concluded. "Not an easy man to get along with, but in my opinion there's not a better captain in the fleet."

.

"He's hailing us, sir," came the voice of Ensign Fyndis Gaddid, a young bolian woman standing at the new tactical operations station that had been squeezed next to the tactical station in a recent re-design of the Intrepid's bridge.

Captain Cruz made a "come hither" gesture with her right hand and the ensign put the signal through.

Captain Chekov appeared on the screen – a balding man in his 60's with a hard round belly, an unflattering comb-over, a pock-marked face and heavy lidded eyes. He leaned forward in an enormous captain's chair. Although she could not see it on the viewer, Cruz knew that chair was located near the back of the largest bridge on any Star Fleet vessel, a bridge that included a bull-pen of eight tactical stations.

"Intrepid, this is U.S.S. Milky Way, Serge Mykel Chekov commanding."

"Milky Way, this is the U.S.S. Intrepid, Sullivan Parker Cruz commanding. Go ahead, Milky Way…"

"Are you ready for our little game of wounded bird, Sully?" Chekov had only a hint of his grandfather's famously thick Russian accent.

"Aye, sir," Cruz replied.

"That is your bridge, Captain and your collar is identical to mine. It's not "sir" to you any longer. It's 'Ser-GEY', yes?"

"Old habits are hard to break, Captain… Serge," Cruz corrected.

"And best broken over vodka," Chekov replied. "Of which I have a considerable supply waiting for you and your crew at the successful conclusion of this mission. Our green-skinned neighbors have grown far too aggressive along our negotiated border and Admiral th'Zoarhi wants a demonstration of our resolve to protect the indigenous peoples of the region. I'm afraid I intend to leave you hanging out there for a very uncomfortable amount of time. I will be putting you and your crew at great risk and you should anticipate both damage and casualties. I want you to fight hard and make a good show of trying to run, but do not escape. It is the only way to draw out their larger assets."

"I am not wild about being hung out as bait," said Cruz.

"I was used as bait on my first mission with my first command," Chekov responded. "And I was just about your age at the time. Although I was somewhat prettier than you... Remember, just because you can't escape and you have to fight doesn't mean you can't fight smart. Fight the way I taught you and you have a reasonable chance of bringing most of your crew – and most of your ship home. Horoshaya ohota, Kapitan!"

Cruz rolled her eyes: "Da, nye zabood' spasti moyoo zadnistsoo, Serge Mykel!"

Chekov broke into an uncharacteristic laugh. "Your Russian is atrocious, Sullivan Parker. But I fully intend to save your ass anyway. We will see you at the border. Milky Way out!"

.

On the bridge of the U.S.S. Milky Way, Captain Sullivan Cruz's image had only taken up an eighth panel of the enormous main viewer. As her image was replaced by a view of the U.S.S. Intrepid jumping to warp, Captain Chekov walked forward from the captain's chair to the tactical bullpen, located forward right and sunk into the floor so deep that most of the bullpen could not be observed from his perch at the back of the bridge. A group of eight officers sat in a ring facing outward at an unbroken, 360 degree viewer that wrapped around and under them. The spherical view was completed by a dome viewer in the ceiling of the bridge high above. Their seats and consoles were transparent and mounted on gyroscopic gimbals, allowing these officers to rotate a full 360 degrees.

A command chair was located in the center of this group – also transparent and mounted on gimbals so that the Milky Way's tactical officer could coordinate the actions of the enormous ship's multiple weapon systems as well as an accompanying squadron of long range interceptors. This seat was elevated to provide the tactical officer an eye-line to the ship's captain as well as oversight of the stations inside the bull-pen.

.

"I know you are accustomed to leading from in front, Captain," said Chekov to his recently promoted tactical officer. "Now you must lead from behind. Are you prepared for that? Can you still fight when you're not out there with a phaser cannon between your thighs? Can you lead people into battle when you're looking at their backsides?"

Captain Red swiveled her chair to look up at Chekov as if he were her target. "I am and I can. I would never have let you put me in this chair otherwise."

"Don't get comfortable in it."

"Never."

.

Chekov walked to the forward center of the bridge to stand between the tactical bullpen and a quartet of stations to the left arranged in a wing pattern – helm and telemetry forward and center, flanked by navigation and science stations respectively that were slightly swept back. Captain Chekov took up a wide stance, feet firmly planted, arms akimbo. "Lieutenant Combs, make your course for the orion border at warp factor 5."

"Course laid in at warp factor 5, Captain," the helmsman responded.

Chekov kept his eyes forward. "Captain Red, are your birds ready to leave the coup?"

"Aye Captain, all interceptors reporting course laid in, warp factor 5. My birds are ready, Captain," Red responded.

.

"Then let's get the flock out of here. All units – Engage!"

.  
.

* _Horoshaya ohota, Kapitan_! (Good Hunting, Captain)

* _Da, nye zabood' spasti moyoo zadnistsoo, Serge Mykel_! (Yeah, don't forget to save my ass, Serge Mykel!)

.  
16.2


	4. Ep 16x3: Self-Sealing Stem Bolts

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 3: Lord Wootton-Sandleigh

16.3  
Lord Wootton-Sandleigh

Dr. Moon Sun Salek, the U.S.S. Hunter's Director of Engineering, was gratified that her entire department were not only familiar with the name Dr. Geoffrey Horatio Alstars, but were familiar with his work and overawed by his presence. The theoretical math he had developed in his early 20's that was the foundation of his doctorate in mathematics had transformed modern warp field engineering and the Crusher/Crumar/Carrera recursive warp engine would not have been possible without these equations. Most of Dr. Moon's crew had at first assumed the new Ensign Alstars was a descendant of the great mathematician and not the actual article himself.

Rigellian chelna had no longer life expectancy than humans – less, actually, so Dr. Alstars' apparently undiminished strength and vigor at his age was a surprise to everyone. He looked like an old man - the only evidence of his chelna heritage were his somewhat large gold eyes and slightly long incisors. He certainly didn't walk like an old man. In addition to his well-documented mathematical genius, he had quickly demonstrated an instinct for engineering as well.

.

"What are you doing Engineer Gibbon?" Alstars asked in his booming, precise and rather bristly Oxford accent.

"Remounting the outer nacelle control panel to the primary control frame assembly," Gibbon replied somewhat indistinctly, without looking up, his words slurred around something in his mouth.

"No, no, stop that!"

Flight Engineer Kerry Gibbon froze, still holding a large and quite heavy control panel in place with his knee, a bolt in one hand, rivet wrench in the other and holding two more bolts in his mouth.

Alstars, nearly 6'6", crossed half of the main engineering deck in two great strides, reached out and put his large, wrinkled hand under Gibbon's mouth. "Spit those out!"

Gibbon dropped the two bolts from his mouth into Ensign Alstars' hand.

"These are self-sealing stem bolts! What are you trying to do, melt your teeth or weld your mouth shut?"

"I'm just trying to get this panel…"

"Put that down! No, wait, give me those tools first, and then put that down!"

Gibbon dropped the other bolt and the rivet wrench into Ensign Alstars' large hands. Alstars set the tools aside, then grasped two of the handles on the control panel and helped the young engineer lower it to the floor. Once the panel was on the floor, Alstars, towering over Gibbon, rapped his knuckles lightly on the young engineer's forehead.

"Hellooo? Is there anybody in there? I happen to know that there is a panel mounting horse in that cabinet..." Alstars gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. "And I also happen to know, because I checked, that it is fully equipped with not only all the clamps you need to keep that panel in place while you secure it to the primary control frame, but it also has all the movable trays and drawers you could want to keep tools and parts in so you don't inadvertently swallow a white-hot rivet. But first you have to tell me why you were trying to mount a control panel that needs regular maintenance using self-sealing stem bolts?"

"I'ba, uhm…" Gibbon stammered, incoherently.

"That's what I thought. You were using them so you wouldn't have to drag out the mounting horse and do things the proper way. Save those self-sealing stem bolts for permanently mounted fixtures, get out the correct bolts, lugs and wrenches and do the job right, Mr. Gibbon!"

.

Alstars stormed off. He looked up and saw that Flight Engineer Yolanda Thomas had observed his encounter from deck one. He winked at her and went back to a holographically projected clear-board he had been scrawling equations on before scolding Kerry Gibbon. He scowled at his equations, then waved his hands impatiently at the clear-board.

"No, no, get rid of them."

The equations promptly vanished.

"I haven't had an original thought in 50 years and now everyone expects me to solve this riddle – how to get this whole blasted class of ships safely into recursive warp without artificial intelligence…" Alstars groused. He sighed, picked up a holographically projected black marker and started scrawling new equations, grumbling under his breath the entire time.

.

Dr. Alstars had started and re-started his equation four or six times - he had stopped counting - might have been eight… He sat on a track chair (locked securely in place, per procedure), long legs crossed, back straight, and ran his fingers through his thick mane of gray hair - still shot with a few reddish-blonde patches - which action made his hair stand out and gave him more than a little the look of an elderly and rather disgruntled lion. He took a sip of hot tea (in a safety sealed sip cup, per procedure) and grumbled under his breath, "Rome wasn't built in a day…"

At that moment, Dr. Moon swept by, Gaia Gamor and Navigators Johanna Imex and Eli Strahl in tow, and said, "Flight engineers and officers to the engineering conference room. Now please!"

Alstars got up, quickly scrawled a few more characters onto the clear-board and headed toward the engineering conference room, located at the back of the engineering deck, directly underneath Dr. Moon's office on deck one. He returned to the board, hastily scrawled a few more characters and stepped away again, then returned again, retrieved his teacup and set the marker on the clear-board. Then returned again to wave a frustrated hand at the board - "Discontinue hologram!" The clear-board and marker promptly vanished.

.

As Alstars settled at the conference table, Dr. Moon called for the ship's interactive holographic avatar. "Hunter, please display the wreckage of the B.R. Prophet Motive."

Alstars was gratified that the avatar had been designed after another elderly mathematician and engineer. He had only met Professor Jose Crumar a few times, but because Hunter had Crumar's features, voice and mannerisms, he was much more relatable to Alstars than his engineers - all of whom (with the exception of Thomas Hobbs) seemed like children to him. Even Hobbs was only in his mid-50's. With Hunter looking like Crumar, there was at least one other old codger running about that he could relate to.

It was rather odd that the hologram chose to appear as a 6" tall Lilliputian standing on the conference table, but that made it easy for Hunter to walk around the projection of the wreckage of a large runabout, finished in cardassian yellow, and point out the telltale signs that it had been destroyed by orion phasers as well as damaged by encounters with high energy plasma.

.

"The Prophet Motive was left adrift in the Badlands" Hunter said. "No personnel - alive or dead - were found aboard. There is evidence that the craft had carried three emergency EVA suits. All of these were missing. It looks like, before exiting the craft, one of the occupants fed the computer core into the torpedo tube and launched it. Particle remains indicate that it was launched into a plasma cloud, along with a photon torpedo…"

"They must have been desperate," observed 2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui. "I'm surprised there is as much of the ship left as it appears. Detonating a photon torpedo in a plasma cloud as big as the Badlands… That's a really big, nasty explosion."

"We are scheduled to rendezvous with a ferengi marauder, then we will be headed toward the Badlands," said Dr. Moon. "For obvious reasons, we cannot use the zip drive inside a massive plasma cloud and it is likely, given the evidence of a torpedo launch, that the topography of the entire region may have changed. Once we are in the cloud, we will not be able to exceed warp 3 and it is possible we will have to move much slower through some areas. The U.S.S. Galaxy has been dispatched from Deep Space 9 to the border of the Badlands, where they will use their sensors and probes to re-map the region. We should rendezvous with the Galaxy in four days. Hopefully they will have a fairly comprehensive topography by then."

Moon paused to take a drink of coffee (not in a lidded cup to Alstars' silent dismay) before continuing. "Lieutenant Gamor has been assigned as our intermediary with Galaxy's Stellar Cartography department. Hui, I want you to coordinate with their engineering department and gather everything they can pick up about the re-composition of the plasma fields and everything they can learn about effective shielding from their probes. Galaxy has already launched 400 probes into the Badlands and they will be conducting experiments with interaction between shields and the plasma cloud as well as using them for mapping."

"How many probes does one of those old Galaxy class cruisers carry?" asked Yolanda Thomas.

"As many as they need," Flight Engineer Thomas Hobbs replied. "The Galaxy class had factories installed during the last series of upgrades and now carry a large number of civilian manufacturers. They also had interceptor bays installed to carry eight of the new long-range interceptors."

Alstars thumped the conference table impatiently, giving both of his engineers a warning glare.

"Hey! Careful with that finger," said the 6" tall projection of Hunter, staggering slightly on the table and drawing a quick laugh from everyone except Alstars and Moon.

Dr. Moon cleared her throat. "I want all of you to study everything we have on the B.R. Prophet Motive and everything about the Badlands. You have four days to become experts on both of these. But not you, Sir Geoffrey," Moon added, looking at Alstars. "Your project is top priority for Star Fleet."

"If you please, Director, I prefer Ensign. We're more than a thousand light years from Merry Old England and I would rather not have any of this Sir Geoffrey or Lord Wootton-Sandleigh silliness. At my age, Star Fleet OCS was no picnic and I fancy the title I feel I actually earned."

Moon smiled. "Understood and appreciated, Ensign. Before you go back your equations - and the rest of you to your stations, I need to notify Pep. We have received a broadcast from Star Fleet Operations, but Pep wanted this meeting to be complete before relaying it." Moon unconsciously looked up as the communication system automatically adjusted to carry her voice to the bridge. "Pep? We're ready down here."

.

Commander David Pepper's voice was heard throughout the ship. "All hands, please stand by for a broadcast from Star Fleet Operations…"

16.3


	5. Ep 16x4: The Needs of the Many

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 4: The Needs of the Many  
.

16.4  
The Needs of the Many  
.

"I am unconcerned about the judgement of history, Director. My only concern is to ensure that there will be someone left to read that history." Vice Admiral Senvol stood next to the Director of Section 31, Chief Justice Julian Bashir. "You were wise to select your co-conspirators exclusively from those of my people who have completed the kolinahr. Which leaves only you wracked with such concerns as whether the preservation of all life in the Alpha Quadrant might be worth the things we must do."

Both men were watching a live video feed of a stunningly beautiful romulan woman writhing and howling in agony. Her torment was not caused by anything so crude as physical pain. The ancient, blue-eyed vulcan in the room with her was such a powerful telepath and had spent so much time deeply enmeshed in her mind that he no longer needed to touch her to initiate or maintain a mind meld. The ability to communicate telepathically without touch was exceedingly rare among vulcans. The ability to remotely initiate and maintain a mind meld - especially one powerful enough to completely dominate another mind - was almost unheard of.

.

"He has a rare gift, Julian," Senvol continued. "A depth of understanding of the terrors that lurk deep in the soul and how to evoke them and turn them to his purposes."

Bashir shuddered. He had grown gaunt and his skin had the unhealthy pallor of someone who spent too much time hidden from the light of day. "If he had not completed the kolinahr, I would think him a sadist."

"The kolinahr replaces such emotions as satisfaction and gratification with an understanding of the long term implication of our actions." Like the vulcan administering the torment they were witnessing, Senvol was ancient - his face lined with age, his eyes green rimmed, his thinning hair turned a greenish gray. "My greatest concern is not for him, nor for her, but for you. By exposing yourself to every moment of Remma's adjustment - the destruction and reconstruction of her personality - you endanger our desired outcome. And all of these things you agonize over may come to naught as a result."

"Someone must, Senvol," said Bashir. "You can no longer feel your emotions. Neither can Scrivax. You have purged them through the kolinahr. But emotion must bear witness to the worst parts of what we do and still be able to say that it will be worth it. In a way, I have ordered her death - the death of her personality."

"You have ordered me to my death as well. I go without hesitation. And I will take many with me."

"That is different, Admiral. You know why you must do it. You are a military man and the people you will sacrifice are under your command. I know that Remma is a monster. She has done terrible things for the Romulan Senate. She has tortured and killed just to further the petty grievances of one romulan politician against another."

"Yet still you grieve for her?" Senvol asked.

"I was a doctor before I became a judge. Before I became… Before I joined Section 31. Compassion was my first lesson. First do no harm."

"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. Your responsibility as Director of Section 31 requires you to do harm. Deliberately. To do what is necessary because no one else can," Senvol observed.

"I despised the man whose place I took," said Bashir. "And now I have become him."

"Slade was a good man. A tormented man. But a man with clear, moral vision and purpose," said Senvol. "I trusted him with my life. With the lives of my people. All of my people. If you believe tearing yourself apart over the torment of this romulan woman is what you must do, then you are following his example. I saw him do much the same when harsh action was required. But this one woman's torment is nothing compared to what lies ahead."

.

The Director of Section 31 shuddered again. But he did not look away from the torment of their prisoner.

.  
16.4


	6. Ep 16x5: Lord Wootton-Sandleigh

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 5: Lord Wootton-Sandleigh  
.

16.5  
Lord Wootton-Sandleigh  
.

Dr. Alstars had started and re-started his equation four or six times - he had stopped counting - might have been eight… He sat on a track chair (locked securely in place, per procedure), long legs crossed, back straight, and ran his fingers through his thick mane of gray hair - still shot with a few reddish-blonde patches - which action made his hair stand out and gave him more than a little the look of an elderly and rather disgruntled lion. He took a sip of hot tea (in a safety sealed sip cup, per procedure) and grumbled under his breath, "Rome wasn't built in a day…"

At that moment, Dr. Moon swept by, Gaia Gamor and Navigators Johanna Imex and Eli Strahl in tow, and said, "Flight engineers and officers to the engineering conference room. Now please!"

Alstars got up, quickly scrawled a few more characters onto the clear-board and headed toward the engineering conference room, located at the back of the engineering deck, directly underneath Dr. Moon's office on deck one. He returned to the board, hastily scrawled a few more characters and stepped away again, then returned again, retrieved his teacup and set the marker on the clear-board. Then returned again to wave a frustrated hand at the board - "Discontinue hologram!" The clear-board and marker promptly vanished.

.

As Alstars settled at the conference table, which, like the walls of the room was clear laquer, Dr. Moon called for the ship's interactive holographic avatar. "Hunter, please display the wreckage of the B.R. Prophet Motive."

Alstars was gratified that the avatar had been designed after another elderly mathematician and engineer. He had only met Professor Jose Crumar a few times, but because Hunter had Crumar's features, voice and mannerisms, he was much more relatable to Alstars than his engineers - all of whom (with the exception of Thomas Hobbs) seemed like children to him. Even Hobbs was only in his mid-50's. With Hunter looking like Crumar, there was at least one other old codger running about that he could relate to.

It was rather odd that the hologram chose to appear as a 6" tall Lilliputian standing on the conference table, but that made it easy for Hunter to walk around the projection of the wreckage of a large runabout, finished in cardassian yellow, and point out the telltale signs that it had been destroyed by orion phasers as well as damaged by encounters with high energy plasma.

.

"The Prophet Motive was left adrift in the Badlands" Hunter said. "No personnel - alive or dead - were found aboard. There is evidence that the craft had carried three emergency EVA suits. All of these were missing. It looks like, before exiting the craft, one of the occupants fed the computer core into the torpedo tube and launched it. Particle remains indicate that it was launched into a plasma cloud, along with a photon torpedo…"

"They must have been desperate," observed 2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui. "I'm surprised there is as much of the ship left as it appears. Detonating a photon torpedo in a plasma cloud as big as the Badlands… That's a really big, nasty explosion."

"We are scheduled to rendezvous with a ferengi marauder, then we will be headed toward the Badlands," said Dr. Moon. "For obvious reasons, we cannot use the zip drive inside a massive plasma cloud and it is likely, given the evidence of a torpedo launch, that the topography of the entire region may have changed. Once we are in the cloud, we will not be able to exceed warp 3 and it is possible we will have to move much slower through some areas. The U.S.S. Galaxy has been dispatched from Deep Space 9 to the border of the Badlands, where they will use their sensors and probes to re-map the region. We should rendezvous with the Galaxy in four days. Hopefully they will have a fairly comprehensive topography by then."

Moon paused to take a drink of coffee (not in a lidded cup to Alstars' silent dismay) before continuing. "Lieutenant Gamor has been assigned as our intermediary with Galaxy's Stellar Cartography department. Hui, I want you to coordinate with their engineering department and gather everything they can pick up about the re-composition of the plasma fields and everything they can learn about effective shielding from their probes. Galaxy has already launched 400 probes into the Badlands and they will be conducting experiments with interaction between shields and the plasma cloud as well as using them for mapping."

"How many probes does one of those old Galaxy class cruisers carry?" asked Yolanda Thomas.

"As many as they need," Flight Engineer Thomas Hobbs replied. "The Galaxy class had factories installed during the last series of upgrades and now carry a large number of civilian manufacturers. They also had interceptor bays installed to carry eight of the new long-range interceptors."

Alstars thumped the conference table impatiently, giving both of his engineers a warning glare.

"Hey! Careful with that finger," said the 6" tall projection of Hunter, staggering slightly on the table and drawing a quick laugh from everyone except Alstars and Moon.

Dr. Moon cleared her throat. "I want all of you to study everything we have on the B.R. Prophet Motive and everything about the Badlands. You have four days to become experts on both of these. But not you, Sir Geoffrey," Moon added, looking at Alstars. "Your project is top priority for Star Fleet."

"If you please, Director, I prefer Ensign. We're more than a thousand light years from Merry Old England and I would rather not have any of this Sir Geoffrey or Lord Wootton-Sandleigh silliness. At my age, Star Fleet OCS was no picnic and I fancy the title I feel I actually earned."

Moon smiled. "Understood and appreciated, Ensign. Before you go back your equations - and the rest of you to your stations, I need to notify Pep. We have received a broadcast from Star Fleet Operations, but Pep wanted this meeting to be complete before relaying it." Moon unconsciously looked up as the communication system automatically adjusted to carry her voice to the bridge. "Pep? We're ready down here."

.

Commander David Pepper's voice was heard throughout the ship. "All hands, please stand by for a broadcast from Star Fleet Operations…"

.  
16.5


	7. Ep 16x6: Battle of Coridan Corridor

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 6: The Battle of the Coridan Corridor  
.

16.6  
The Battle of the Coridan Corridor  
.

"All Star Fleet personnel and other authorized parties, this is Fleet Admiral Miriam Stewart, Director of Star Fleet Operations. At 4 hours, 9 minutes Star Fleet standard time this morning, a flight of 18 orion light interceptors engaged the U.S.S. Intrepid in the Coridan Corridor, inside Federation space. As you may be aware, the Orion Syndicate has become increasingly aggressive with slaving operations targeting pre-warp civilizations within Federation space, and has conducted particularly egregious raids against two such worlds located near the Coridan Corridor, farming these worlds for slaves in open abrogation of the Babel Treaties and the Khitomer Accords.

"This orion strike force was only the vanguard of what turned out to be a much larger group of orion marauders and a previously unknown new class of orion heavy destroyers. With great courage and discipline, the crews of the U.S.S. Intrepid and the U.S.S. Victory worked together with our heroic klingon allies aboard the I.K.V. Nome under Commander Koraj and the I.K.V. kHov Bome under Captain Warg to draw out this large force of orion ships.

"In what was, in my opinion, the most flawlessly conducted Star Fleet combined operation in the past century, Captain Serge Mykel Chekov set a trap for the orion slavers and led a large task force of our ships, including the Andorian Imperial Guard Vessel, the I.G.V. Ravonnelle, along with two full squadrons of our new long-range interceptors into battle and destroyed 18 orion marauders, 42 orion light interceptors and four of their new heavy destroyers. Not one orion ship or interceptor survived the Battle of Coridan Corridor. And all Star Fleet ships and the two klingon ships are coming home.

"But we paid a heavy price for this victory. I regret to inform you that we lost 13 of our long-range interceptors in this battle and only 4 of those interceptor pilots survived. The I.K.V. kHov Bome and the U.S.S. Intrepid in particular suffered heavy damage and heavy casualties, including the loss of Captain Warg and Captain Sullivan Parker Cruz, both on their first tour of duty in command. The U.S.S. Victory also suffered heavy damage and considerable casualties. A comprehensive list will be published once their families have been notified. In all, 19 klingon warriors and 117 Star Fleet crew members, along with 8 associated civilians serving on the Victory gave their lives to this effort.

"On behalf of a grateful Federation, I want to express our profound gratitude toward and pride in our valiant klingon allies who risked and gave their lives with great honor and thank Chancellor Martok for allowing these courageous crews to join us in this effort to protect the innocent from slavery. I also want to thank Emperor Sin IV for contributing the I.G.V. Ravonnelle and its crew and heavy interceptors to this effort. Their courage, honor and above all, their discipline made this complete victory possible.

.

"Additionally, Admiral Jamaal El Fadil, Star Fleet Chief of Staff, has authorized me to announce at this time the promotion of Serge Chekov to Rear Admiral. And Rear Admiral Chekov has chosen the U.S.S. Milky Way as his flagship.

.

"I want to make it clear that a large number of orions are members of Star Fleet and 9 of our casualties in this action were orion or had orion heritage, including Captain Cruz. We have not yet heard from any members of the Orion Allied Governments and at this point we do not have a full picture of how the alliance will react. In spite of the actions of the slavers and the Orion Syndicate, the majority of orions living and working in Federation space are peaceful and lawful members of our society and respect the rights of pre-warp civilizations to privacy and insulation from influence by advanced races. Please allow me to emphasize that orions are not, generally speaking, our enemies. Do not allow your opinion of a great people to be colored by the acts of an outlaw minority.

.

"Detailed briefings for all Star Fleet commanding officers and government officials will be provided by Star Fleet Intelligence along appropriate communication channels. Please direct any questions you have to your commanding officers. We do not yet know whether to expect additional incursions along our border with the orion alliance, but I can assure you that we are prepared for them if they come.

.

"To all Star Fleet and associated personnel: Thank you for your service. Thank you for your courage. Thank you for your forbearance. Thank you for your discipline. This is Fleet Admiral Miriam Stewart, signing out."

.  
16.6


	8. Ep 16x7: And Then There Were Three

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 7: And Then There Were Three  
.

16.7  
And Then There Were Three  
.

"So… Rear Admiral Possum?" Dr. Tali Shae asked.

"He has his admirers, Tali, and they call him Possum-Chicken," Irons responded. "I don't like the man much, but I admire his tendency to bring people home alive."

"I have already heard grumbling that he held the Milky Way and the Ravonnelle back for three hours while orion forces burned down his former first officer. The Intrepid is coming home, but they're having to tow it. It and the Victory," Tali observed.

"You remain wisely silent, Kenneth, any observations?" Irons asked.

Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Dolphin and Cmdr. Tali Shae were seated on the couch in the captain's stateroom. A bottle of pineapple cider and tumblers were set on the table before them. Justice Minerva Irons, wrapped in a black and scarlet kimono, was in her lounge chair, her legs folded under her, a tumbler of the sparkling beverage in her hand.

"I don't envy Chekov and I would not want to wear that much platinum on my collar," Dolphin observed. "It comes with the requirement to occasionally send your friends to their deaths. I understand he dribbled ships into the fray specifically to lure out all of the orion forces so that he could destroy them all in one action. Do you know why the Ravonnelle was assigned to that action?"

.

"Redemption, Lieutenant Commander," Irons replied, "In return for the destruction of two Star Fleet interceptors and killing one of our pilots in the Battle over Rings. The Emperor Sin IV has assigned the Ravonnelle to Rear Admiral Chekov for the next three years and requested that they be put first in battle as often as possible. They are to put their lives on the line for the Federation and return with their shields or on them."

"Our new emperor is quite the mercurial soul," said Tali. "I hear he has pulled our delegation to the Federation Council out of the Moderate coalition."

"I can't see Andoria joining the Homeworld coalition," Dolphin said.

"Not the Homeworld coalition," Irons responded. "The Federal coalition. A few bolians and humans left the Moderates as well, so Ushi no longer has a majority. Your friend has been busy." She took a drink of her cider.

Kenny Dolphin coughed on his drink. It took a moment for him to recover. "You think this is Ivonovic's doing?"

"Emory Ivonovic has made some very astute alliances," Irons replied, "the most surprising of them with Emperor Sin IV. I still agree with you that it would have been a disaster if Ivonovic had surrendered to the Tribunal. But why was he so ready to do so? Do you think he was angling to get a seat on the Federation Council?"

"Ivonovic is far more subtle than he appears," said Kenny. "But I think that was just a stroke of luck for him. He was afraid of a romulan intelligence operative. He seemed to think she answers directly to the Romulan Senate. Apparently she is in command of that cardassian cruiser that attacked us last year. So what happens to Ushi? Does he lose power?"

.

Irons laughed. "Ushi has been setting the agenda for the Federation Council for more than 40 years now. Most of that time without any coalition having a functional majority. There is no such thing as a prime minister or a 'no confidence' vote. Whoever can put together the most votes sets the agenda and names the committees."

"I had a hard time at first believing he was your son," said Dolphin. "And no idea how he keeps getting elected."

"I keep forgetting that Earth representatives are popularly elected by district," said Tali. "Most Federation Council members are appointed by their homeworld governments. How does that strange child of yours keep winning elections?"

Irons took a sip of her pineapple cider, smiled. "Ushi's opponents have always withdrawn before their names could be registered on a ballot. He is a very secretive man – he keeps his secrets and he knows everyone else's secrets. He is by far the strangest of my children. And the most prolific – he has given me 31 grandchildren."

"I heard he is the master of some ancient form of martial arts," said Dolphin.

"I honestly don't know," Irons responded. "His father taught him Ba Gua Zhang and Jujitsu when he was young, but he started studying on his own before he was a teenager and would quit the moment he realized he was being observed. If he is a master of any form, it is most likely one he developed himself. And it seems he has sired a race just as strange and secretive as he is."

"Ushi may have met his match in Sin IV," Tali Shae observed. "You have had more dealings with him than me, but he has always had a reputation for secrecy and unpredictability. Why do you think he instructed his delegation to shift over to the Federal coalition?"

"By withdrawing from the Moderate coalition, the andorians have become the swing vote," Irons replied, "so Ushi has to specially court them. But that only worked because Ivonovic was able to convince enough other members to leave the Moderates so they no longer have a majority." Irons drained her glass.

"Which makes your friend another unique power player that Ushi also has to deal with," said Tali.

"You keep calling him 'my friend'," Dolphin objected.

"He cultivated you because he realized you could be useful to him," Irons observed. She stood up, stretched her legs, grunted in discomfort. "I can no longer sit in that position for very long…" Irons sat back down, stretched her legs in front of her, sighed heavily. "That interview with you allowed Ivonovic to broaden his appeal not only to nearly all the various naturalborn groups and their sympathizers, but also to a much broader audience who seem to be growing more receptive to your writings. He's capitalizing on your notoriety. Not only as a philosopher, but also your notoriety within Star Fleet as a pilot. All of that gives you some clout with him. You should cultivate that relationship – if not for your sake, for all of ours." Irons set her empty tumbler on the table, then placed three fingers from her left hand on the table and very briefly held up the index finger of her right hand.

.

Kenny Dolphin and Tali Shae looked at each other in surprise.

"There were four of us," said Irons. She refilled her tumbler, settled back into her lounge chair. Lifted her glass. "The late Lynhart Shran."

Dolphin and Tali Shae lifted their glasses. Until that moment, neither had been aware that Investigator Shran - or that each the other - was a member of the federation's top secret organization, Section 31. An organization so secret, they avoided speaking the name openly even in the privacy of the captain's quarters.

.

"We have a serious problem," Irons continued after a long drink. "For the moment our assignments align. But if you receive instructions that seem strange to you, trust your own judgement over the organization. I hardly need say it, but trust me before you trust them."

Tali Shae's antennae were standing at attention now.

Dolphin glanced at the doctor. "They're compromised," he said.

Tali looked questioningly at Irons. "How did he…"

"Quadropseudoprozadiazomine," Irons responded with a gesture toward Dolphin. "It allowed him to go through a mind-meld with a contaminated vulcan without becoming compromised too. That's how the organization is being infiltrated. It's being passed along by vulcans through mind-melds. I recommend you keep some quadropseudoprozadiazomine – if you get into a situation that might involve a mind-meld, inject it as a prophylactic."

Irons stood up, began pacing. "I have an assignment for you, Tali. We will be meeting with Damon Trock of the Ferengi Merchant Ship Usotro. You are to pose as your cousin, Autti Shae and travel with him to an orion slave auction. You will take Reeves and his team for security."

"Just the vacation I needed," Tali quipped. "I assume my cover is because Autti is now the Emperor's physician?"

"And the two of you are reasonably close in looks," Irons replied. "Arrangements have been made with the andorian government. Unless someone is there who actually knows Autti, your cover should be secure. All of the computers will identify you as her."

"I don't think she is all that well known in either ferengi or orion circles. Who is the slave?" Tali asked.

"My grandson-in-law," said Irons. "Pomm." She drained her glass.

"Poor kid," Tali said. "He's probably sweating his massive, flabby buns off."

"Pomm has a talent for being underestimated." Irons smiled. "My granddaughter chose well when she married him. There's the heart of an Irons under all that blubber. You need to find out what has happened to Oarama and, more critically, Pivin. More hinges on that little old romulan woman than I care to admit…"

.  
16.7


	9. Ep 16x8: Tolon's Women

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 8: Tolon's Women  
.

16.8  
Tolon's Women  
.

"Oh… my… goddess…" Ensign Tolon Reeves was almost speechless as he joined his tactical squad in the transporter room. His four tall, athletic tactical specialists had received surgical pigmentation and hair implants. Their once bronze skin was now a uniform dark green and their short, blonde hair had been replaced by cascades of thick, wavy, coal black curls. Their lips, fingernails and toenails were painted a deep, vibrant scarlet. At just over 6', the four women were considerably taller than average for orion women. But it was the scant clothing that had rendered Reeves dumbfounded. Skin-tight midnight blue straps barely held their ample breasts in place and their matching bikini bottoms might as well have been spray-painted on. Each woman was also draped in diaphanous violet and red scarves that neither covered nor concealed their sleek, muscular bodies.

.

"You have no need for orion pheromones. Your victims will succumb to their own hormones just from looking at you," Reeves said. Although not surgically altered himself, Reeves was out of uniform He was wearing loose, baggy pants, shirt and vest, all made of beautifully colored, carefully detailed and far-too-comfortable silks. He had left his own family earring behind and was wearing the earring of an enormous and famously wealthy bajoran family.

Chief Tactical Specialist Rume Grace smiled wickedly. "I'm afraid sir, for us to play our roles properly, that you must be our victim…"

"Hey… I have a girlfriend you know," Reeves objected. "A really cute one that I'd like to keep…"

"And she is in love with a Star Fleet officer who has an obligation to duty," simpered Tactical Specialist Ranni Neivi, trailing her fingers over Ensign Tolon's mostly bald head and toying with his comb-over.

Tactical Specialist Dasare Eba pressed her nearly naked body tightly against Reeve's back and ran her hands firmly over his belly and chest.

.

Dr. Tali Shae, clad in tight leathers in the latest andorian civilian fashion, strode into the transporter room and viewed this risqué spectacle on the transporter pad. Her antennae bristled. "Stop that! Can't this wait until we arrive at the slave market? Or at least until we're aboard the Usotro?"

Dasare Eba rested her chin on the top of Reeves' head and pouted. "I'm afraid it cannot be delayed."

"We all need to settle into our roles well before we are seen by anyone else," said Chief Grace, stepping up behind Tali Shae as she took her place on the transporter pad and twining her long body around the andorian doctor's back, causing the curvy andorian woman's right antennae to spasm spontaneously - like the leg of a small dog being mercilessly tickled.

"We can't help it," added Tactical Specialist Veri Geki. She nuzzled Reeves' ear, then looked up at Dr. Tali Shae:

.

"We're method actors."

.

Tali sighed and gave Midshipman Tammy Brazil a pained look, her right antenna still spasming helplessly. "Energize… Please?"

.  
16.8


	10. Ep 16x9: Vengeons-Roux

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 9: Vengeons-Roux  
.

16.9  
Vengeons-Roux  
.

From the landing site to the supply and survival station Pomm and Oarama had built several years ago was a six hour walk through old growth forest with little underbrush. Oarama and Pivin could see that they were being tracked at a distance by the wolf-like animals they had observed on their arrival. Both women carried Andorian Imperial Guard issue phaser rifles slung on their backs and each had a hand phaser concealed in her clothing. But the women wanted to avoid using their phasers unless absolutely necessary. The heavy plastic skids from their flight suits made fine walking sticks, each with a shepherd's crook at the top. As the women walked, they would occasionally gouge the bare, forest floor with their walking sticks.

As they got within a few hundred meters of the supply station, their lupine escort melted away and both women unslung their phaser rifles under the assumption the quadrupeds were shy of the area because it was occupied. Pivin's superior hearing picked up the sound of voices at almost the same moment that Oarama was able to detect wraiths of heat moving near the mouth of the cave which she and Pomm had stocked so many years ago. Both women stopped and observed.

A fire had been started in the cave - Oarama could not see the flames or a trail of smoke, but she could smell it. Evidently the inhabitants were using the stove that she and Pomm had hidden in the cave, along with a chimney system to route the smoke away from the cave. She and Pivin crept closer and were soon able to observe a small number of people tending the plants outside the cave.

The two women noticed the watchers at the same moment and stopped their movement. The watchers at the edge of the tree line appeared to be children, but serious, alert children. They were now close enough to hear the people talking quietly, but Oarama could not pick out any words.

Two individuals, appearing to be young boys by their size, emerged from the tree line into the camp, carrying what could only be firewood. The larger of these spoke in a loud voice, causing some of the adults in the camp to move away from him and others to come and relieve him of the firewood he was carrying. Others came more eagerly to the smaller boy and relieved him of firewood.

Oarama did not need to understand the language to gather that the larger boy was throwing his weight around. The children who had been watching at the edge of the forest had turned their attention back in to the camp, giving Pivin and Oarama the opportunity to move much closer. Oarama could tell by Pivin's expression that the older romulan woman was outraged. As they got closer to the camp and could observe its denizens more closely, Oarama began to understand why.

.

Romulans. Elderly romulans. Very elderly romulans and a small number of young romulan children. Oarama checked her communicator. The universal translator should have translated romulan, but the communicator had no power. Oarama did not know whether Pivin's communicator was working, but it didn't matter - these people were speaking her language. Pivin walked straight into the camp. Oarama held back, covering the elderly romulan with her phaser rifle. These romulans did not appear to be armed. Both the elderly and the children huddled back as Pivin emerged from the trees, but the older boy challenged her loudly. He pulled out a homemade bow, but before he could fit an arrow to it, Pivin neatly cut it in half with her phaser.

Oarama checked her own phaser - still set on stun. Pivin must have changed the setting in the moment she lifted and used the weapon - with tremendous accuracy and confidence. If her pencil-thin beam had encountered one of the romulans it would have sliced effortlessly through flesh and bone. Oarama was suddenly reminded of Pivin's decades of service in the Romulan Imperial Ground Forces. Of course she was expert with a phaser. As quickly as she had raised and used the weapon, she had returned it to her back.

The older boy had a sly expression. He was wise enough to realize that Pivin had no intention of killing him, so he moved forward to challenge her hand to hand. Pivin was ignoring the boy and speaking to the elders - who were apparently trying to warn her about the boy's impending attack. This boy had a lot of lessons to learn. Oarama had the opportunity to deliver one of those lessons - she could stun the boy, letting him know that people like Pivin more often than not had backup.

But that was a lesson for another time. The first thing the boy needed to learn was his place - and that was a lesson for Pivin to teach. Before the young romulan realized he had stepped into range, without turning to look at him, Pivin caught his leg with the crook of her walking stick and swept his legs out from under him. The boy sprang back up in a rage and attacked - only to receive the other end of the walking stick to his sternum, robbing him of his breath.

.

Oarama was gratified that the boy continued his aggression unabated - like any good romulan or cardassian should. Best for him to burn out his dream of dominance and learn his lesson thoroughly than to seethe in humiliation and nurse vengeful fantasies as a human or a bajoran child might. Oarama smiled, thinking that it was exactly that duplicity of false humility and hidden strength that she loved so much about Pomm - there was always another hidden strength or ability that she had never known about - even after 15 years of marriage spending nearly every hour together. She missed him terribly.

.

Pivin had transferred the walking stick to her right hand and was leaning on it. She was blocking the boy's continued aggressions with a variety of jabs and blocks using only her left arm - all the while never looking at him and continuing to ask questions of the elders and draw them into conversation. The boy's aggression had gradually been replaced with curiosity. His wild, angry attacks were replaced with more clever, probing ones - learning more now about Pivin's art of self-defense, well aware that he was completely outmatched.

.

After reviewing her environment carefully, Oarama stepped quietly into the encampment and waited, just inside the tree line to be noticed. The elders were clearly both fascinated with and frightened of Pivin. When they finally noticed a cardassian in their midst, they were clearly terrified. The boy was startled out of his wits, never having thought that his antagonist might have an accomplice. He ceased his attacks and remained very still. Since she could not understand a word any of them were saying, Oarama also remained still and waited until it was clear that Pivin had calmed the other romulans sufficiently that they could accept their visitors.

With a few moments now to let down her guard, Oarama squatted down to her haunches and worked on her communicator. She was able to bring the universal translator online, but none of the communicator's other functions were working.

"I see you have cultivated my garden," Oarama finally said to her involuntary hosts. "You are refugees."

"From romulans, cardassians, humans, bajorans, the jem'hadar, and now those green slavers," said an elderly romulan male. "They were the ones who took our children and our grandchildren and left us only with babies, and only these four of the babies have survived."

"I am Oarama Irons. I am free. My husband and I are Federation citizens. He is bajoran."

"I am Dibos. So a bajoran married a cardassian…" the elderly romulan mused, not certain what to make of this information.

"My father was cardassian. My mother is part cardassian, bajoran and human - and just a little bit vulcan, trill and betazoid," Oarama Irons replied. "I take it you have been able to eat the gogo root that my husband and I planted here. And the callolope?

"We did not know your names for these plants, but our palates have grown accustomed to them. But we cannot digest the goo of these plants…" He indicated a large plant with stiff, thick fronds.

"That's Aloe Vera. The goo is medicinal. You seal your wounds and rashes with it," Oarama replied.

"I think that may only work on people with red blood," Dibos responded.

"Unless you have an allergic or toxic reaction to it, it should at the least seal and protect the wound and it has some antibacterial properties," Oarama said.

.  
16.9


	11. Ep 16x10: TPD Unit 1 ADM 12

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 10: TPD Unit 1 ADM 12  
.

16.10  
TPD Unit 1 ADM 12  
.

"We have a small ship coming in at high warp," said 2nd Lt. T'Lon, currently standing watch at the tactical/communication station. "They are requesting permission to dock."

"On screen," said Lt. Cmdr. Mlady. The U.S.S. Hunter had just stopped for supplies at Starbase 91 and was preparing to go to warp.

"They're hailing us," T'Lon said.

Mlady gestured with her thumb and T'Lon activated the link.

"Unidentified ship, this is the U.S.S. Hunter, Mlady commanding. Please identify yourself and your intention."

A familiar, smiling face appeared on the viewer. "Hello Mlady commanding. Is Justice Irons home? Oh - this is the Trantor Police Department Administrative District Monitor, Unit 1 ADM 12."

The door to the captain's office opened and Justice Irons emerged and turned toward the viewer. "Please dock on our port side, Agent Canada. We were just about to go to warp and we are in a hurry."

"I am well aware of that, your honor. I think you'll consider this brief delay worth your while."

.

A few moments later, the Trantor Police monitor was docked with the Hunter and Special Agents Johnny Canada and Anana Lynarr had joined Justice Minerva Irons, Commander David Pepper, Lt. Tauk and Investigator Buttans Ngumbo in the executive conference room.

"We've been getting a lot of conflicting information from Star Fleet Intelligence and from our Federation Council members," said Canada. "That's why the Blue Wraith were commissioned. With three billion people to look after, the City of Trantor has to track every threat separately. We can't afford to rely on Star Fleet or anybody else."

"Recently, we've been picking up so many threats, we've been feeding more information to SFI than we've been getting from them," Canada continued. "There are several different threats that we are tracking. Our analysis indicates the andorian rebellion is picking up energy and while Andoria itself is probably secure, the colonies are at threat and especially of concern to us, the andorian community in Trantor, and three other cities on Cun Ling. We're also tracking what I think are continuing threats from the orion slavers. I don't think their power is destroyed even with the loss of all those ships. We're also tracking rumors that the nausicaans are going to make another play for Pillo - especially now that Captain - um - rather Rear Admiral Chekov pulled the Victory away - leaving only a couple of Prowler class ships in orbit. But my biggest worry is Vulcan."

"What makes you think Vulcan might come under attack?" asked Tauk.

"We've been picking up chatter all over Vulcan and on a few of their nearby colonies from the separatist movement for the past two years. Recently, we have monitored an increase in the chatter. We think the vulcan separatists are trying to coordinate a romulan assault to take the system over - but under the cover of several simultaneous attacks. Star Fleet's victory at Coridan Corridor may have set their plans back, but not by much. I have already informed Star Fleet Intelligence and if that division has earned its name, they will increase security around the Vulcan system." Johnny Canada turned toward Irons. "As I understand it, you are trying to locate Pivin the Betrayer?"

"I'm not sure how you know that, Agent Canada," said Irons. "But the fact you can know something like that when even Star Fleet Operations doesn't is quite disturbing to me."

"Lynhart Shran became a bit of a hero to me," Canada admitted. "It seemed like he was in the middle of everything and I think you, personally, are the reason why. I've been keeping tabs. I don't know what you're hoping to learn from the Betrayer that you don't already know, but whatever it is, I strongly believe it will affect Trantor's security, which means I need to be involved. I understand you have not replaced Investigator Shran yet?"

"I really have no idea how to replace him," said Buttans. "Since the contract was with our agency, it's my responsibility to find another Investigator, but I just can't imagine anyone replacing him."

"Until you find another business partner, what would you think about subcontracting with the Trantor Police Intelligence Division?" Canada asked. "As Special Agent In Charge, I am responsible for assigning field agents to deep cover. I would like to embed Special Agent Anana Lynarr with you. This would give you the full support of the Blue Wraith and would help keep me more informed of things I need to know to identify potential threats to my city. Believe me, if either Pillo or Vulcan were to fall, that would be an enormous threat to Trantor's security. Maybe TPDID could help you prevent those things from coming to pass."

"I would have to go through channels…" Justice Irons started.

"Ah, but Anana has quit the Blue Wraith - bad quarterly reviews. And while you have ultimate approval over whom Mr. Buttans here employs, your contract does not require you to scrutinize his candidates if you choose not to…"

"You know, Mr. Canada, I do believe Lynhart secretly liked you…" Irons observed. "You will give with both hands?"

"May we have the room, your honor?"

Irons looked at Pep. "David?"

"Alright you lot, shuffle off to the kiddie table. Let's let the adults talk," Pep said, clearing the room, and squeezing out of the door after them.

.

"It is starting to look as though you will be working for me," Buttans Ngumbo said to the young bolian agent as he and Lt. Tauk led her to the ground operations center.

"I was a Blue Helmet for two years before transferring from the Uniform Division to intelligence," said Lynarr. "Johnny recruited me for the Blue Wraith. He never told me why."

"Either that or you're not ready to tell me," Ngumbo replied. "We have a lot of down time between assignments." He ushered her to the workstation Shran had previously occupied. "We know the orions took Pomm Irons from the Prophet Motive. We haven't had any word about his wife, Oarama or Pivin the Betrayer. We are working on the assumption that they were abandoned in the Badlands. The Maquis built four stations there, but those were all destroyed by the Dominion. That leaves eight planets or moons with breathable atmospheres and about 20 or 30 other rocks large enough to build a pressurized shelter on."

.

After Commander Pepper left the conference room, Johnny Canada turned to watch him, scratching the back of his head with three fingers. He turned, resumed his seat and picked up a glass of water, took a drink, his little finger extended.

Irons was not surprised that Canada was a member of Section 31. Given his position of leadership in the Trantor Police Department Intelligence Division, he had to be a prime candidate for recruitment and was no doubt a valuable asset.

"Investigator Shran showed me the knots," Canada said. "I have no idea how he knew. But he also knew I was getting strange instructions. Now the whole organization has fallen silent. I've known months to go by without any communication, but never in the face of threats – especially not threats like what we're facing now."

"Lynhart told me you were one of us, Agent Canada," Irons replied. "In these times it appears we cannot trust our own and especially not our leadership. But Lynhart seemed to think of you as one of the good guys."

"Then you'll take Anana? I have more than one reason for wanting to her in your operation. She's a superb analyst and a keen observer of behavior. And she has a gift for decrypting signals. But she isn't a strong fighter and I fear the Blue Wraith are going to be on the front line, facing increasing danger at every turn. Your boat isn't the safest place in the universe, but I would sleep just a little better if she were on it."

"That sounds like a very temporary solution, Mr. Canada."

"All solutions are temporary," Canada replied. "And please, I'm just Johnny. Especially on any open communication channel…"

.  
16.10


	12. Ep 16x11: The FMS Usotro

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 11: The F.M.S. Usotro  
.

16.11  
The F.M.S. Usotro  
.

Damon Trock was less than communicative, despite the attentions of the U.S.S. Hunter's (currently green) tactical squad. Trock turned out to be a taciturn, highly disciplined ferengi shipmaster, highly suspicious of Star Fleet, but a reliable resource for the Irons family, which had profited him and his crew greatly. He spurned the advances of Rumi Grace and her team and would only speak to Dr. Tali Shae – and that only moments before depositing the Hunter's task force at the orion slave auction.

"You are not the only buyers I am carrying," Trock said. "We are currently outside of federation space. All transactions will be conducted outside of federation space and my other buyers will disembark with their purchases before this ship re-enters federation space. I am very careful to obey local laws. Our relationship will be severely damaged if you try to enforce Federation law outside of federation space. Do I make myself clear?"

"Minerva Irons' word is my word," Tali replied.

"Be at the beam-in site in three of your standard hours and be prepared to wait when you get there. Keep your faces clean. If you make a mess of things down there, I may have a hard time extracting you. I am being well paid to return you and your cargo safely to the Irons family, but if it comes to a choice between you and my ship, I will protect the Usotro first. Some advice – I have seen Star Fleet bungle this kind of mission before. You want a bajoran. Don't let the orion slavers know you want a particular bajoran. Bid on every bajoran that comes up for auction and purchase a few of them. I'm sure the Irons family can figure out what to do with them and I have been assured I will be appropriately reimbursed for whatever you spend here. I'm working this job on commission, so the more you spend, the more valuable you become to me." The ferengi captain handed the doctor a large talisman of his face fixed to a sturdy chain. Similar, but smaller talismans were provided to Ensign Tolon Reeves and each of his four tactical specialists.

"Keep these on you at all times. They are your passage back onto my ship. They are keyed to your unique biologies and have an audible alarm in case someone tries to remove them or if someone else puts them on. Only the large one authorizes any expenditures on my account. When you come to an agreement, rub the ears and speak the price and the auctioneer's designation into the pendant. The credit will be lodged to the auctioneer's account and the debit to mine."

.

Damon Trock had kept his passengers separated, so the first time the Hunter's task force met their fellow travelers from the F.M.S. Usotro was at the beam-in point for the slave market. The beam-in point was a rather forbidding open area on the face of an asteroid. Only an energy force field bubble stood between this pocket of breathable atmosphere and the cold of space. The only light was provided by the force field itself. The six crew members from the Hunter and their fellow travelers stood on an area of deck plating that provided sufficient artificial gravity to keep them on the face of the asteroid. The other buyers from the Usotro were two giant and impressively muscled orion men (both about the size of the Hunter's part-orion first officer), four ferengi in a tight group, a tall and rather overweight older romulan woman and a young human male with unruly, dark brown hair accompanied by two gangling female nausicaans – both somewhat taller than the orion males, but less than half their mass. All of these fellow travelers were wearing the larger Trock talismans except the two nausicaan females, who, like Tolon and his group, had the smaller pendants that did not provide access to Damon Trock's credit accounts.

Not having met on the Usotro, each group appeared less than willing to get close to any of the others and the entire delegation from the ferengi merchant ship remained silent until a door opened in the deck plating on the surface of the asteroid to reveal a staircase into a lighted, warm environment inside the asteroid.

.  
16.11


	13. Ep 16x12: The Market (Part 1)

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode 16: Slavers  
Scene 12: The Market (Part 1 of 2)  
.

16.12  
The Market (Part 1 of 2)  
.

Two large orion males checked each of the Usotro's passengers to remove any and verify their Trock talismans, but seemed otherwise generally uninterested in them.

Inside the asteroid, 16 large cages held a variety of slaves and there were almost as many buyers as slaves. The entire operation was run by a number of gigantic orion males and a larger number of orion females (known as slave-girls – it was generally known they controlled the orion men with their pheromones.)

The auction began with a number of humans being sold, then a large number of romulans were auctioned off. Tali ignored the proceedings (or pretended to), luxuriating in the attentions of Rumi Grace. While Tolon Reeves was also being toyed with, he and the other three members of his tactical squad were observing the auction. The older romulan who had landed with them bid on every able-bodied romulan that was auctioned, but passed over any that did not appear fit (a number of them appeared to be sickly and had trouble moving, including a large number of romulan children). Once all the romulans had been sold, she was able to approach the cage that held the romulan slaves and collect her purchases – 15 romulan males and 8 females.

The quartet of ferengi purchased the only three ferengi that came up for auction as well as a few humans and an elderly vulcan woman who had been kept in the same cage as the three ferengi.

Bidding went into overdrive when a number of betazoids came up for auction. There were still quite a few cardassian, andorian and a few orion males in various cages, and, in a cage by himself, one enormous klingon – considerably larger than Pep – when the bajorans came up for auction. Tali Shae purchased five of the first sixteen bajorans. Pomm Irons was the last bajoran put up for auction. The two orion males who had also arrived from the Usotro bid competitively for Pomm, driving the price up to three bars of gold-pressed latinum before they ceded him to Tali Shae.

.

Tolon turned to speak to Dasare Eba and was surprised to hear her voice clearly in his mind. _Don't say it… Think it_.

_Get to the murder holes – you and Veri._ He didn't have to indicate which wall – only picture it in his mind.

.

Tolon had spotted the ports high in one of the cavern walls that provided clear lines of fire throughout the cavern. He was certain there was a stairway or a ladder somewhere behind that wall along with at least one sniper to control any incidents. No weapons were allowed inside the cavern other than control modules for the pain/compliance implants on the neck of every slave. Tactical Specialists Dasare Eba and Veri Geki telepathically confirmed their understanding and made their way toward the wall.

_This is going to end very badly. Ranni, you with me_. Tolon Reeves and Ranni Neivi lagged behind as Dr. Tali Shae, with Chief Rumi Grace in tow, headed up to the auction block to retrieve her purchases. Tolon wasn't surprised when the two muscular orion males followed the doctor.

_We're being followed by orion slave-girls, real ones_, came Dasare's voice into Tolon's mind. _They have made us. This will become violent fast. Try to keep someone between you and the murder holes at all times_.

.

Tali made it to the auction block in front of the cage with the bajorans. The cage was still closed and locked. "Line up!" called the auctioneer. The giant orion male called on bidders, verified their payment, then signaled another orion male to release the identified bajorans from the cage into the custody of their buyers. Tali was already on guard – she was called up last.

Following Damon Trock's instructions, Tali (with only a slight feeling of disgust) gave oomachs to the talisman bearing Trock's likeness (rubbing its ears) and spoke the amount and the auctioneer's designation into the talisman.

.

"Bidder, what is your name?" The giant, green auctioneer had a warm, friendly voice, but his smile was forced.

"Doctor Autti Shae of Andoria."

"Says here you are the personal physician to Emperor Sin IV. What are you doing so far from home?"

"Purchasing bajorans," Tali responded.

"Your payment is approved and credited. Now tell me… Why?" asked the giant green auctioneer.

"Their noses. They can track down one bad oroin in a full warehouse by smell alone," answered Tali.

"And why is the fat one worth 3 bars and 2 strips of gold-pressed latinum – more than twice what you paid for all the rest together?"

"Fat bajorans have better noses."

The auctioneer's voice became low and menacing. "You know I recognized you the moment you entered this room, Judge Tali Shae…" The green giant puffed up, emphasizing his size – which was accentuated by a large amount of blubber. "You don't remember sending me to a prison near the south pole of Andoria, do you?"

"Oh, I do remember you… But I was only a judge for three years. Most of my career has been…"

"I'm going to enjoy putting you on the auction – HURKK!"

The giant's eyes opened wide and he made a sound like a really bad, loud, extremely dry hiccough. Dr. Tali Shae had thrust her left hand deep into his flab on his right side.

"…forensic medicine," she continued, her voice equally low and menacing. "I have dissected enough of your kind to know that you have a secondary nerve cluster located just below the diaphragm on your right side. And if I twist it a little to the right, you will empty your bowls into your pants…" She twisted.

"OOOHHHHH" The giant sounded like a steam whistle. The rest of the room suddenly went silent. All eyes focused on Tali Shae and the giant in front of her writhing in discomfort.

"What a stink!" said Tali. "Okay poopy-britches, tell your friend down there to release the bajorans. They're mine… Now or I'll twist to the left and stop your lower heart.."

"Let the bajorans out!" the giant bawled. "NOW!"

.

Another orion male standing just in front of the caged bajorans pressed a few controls on his control module, releasing the lock to the door of the cage. Pomm Irons started running before the lock was released, shoved two other prisoners out of his way and slammed the door into his giant green liberator. He followed the door around as it swung outward, pinning the giant between the door and the cage.

Pomm was nowhere near as tall as the orion giants, but he was so immensely obese that he weighed more than most of them – that weight translated into momentum, hammering the giant so hard between the door and the cage that he lost consciousness. Pomm quickly swept up the control unit from the floor where the giant had dropped it and entered a few commands into it. The compliance implants on his neck and the necks of the other bajorans deactivated and fell to the floor.

One of the large, muscular orions from the Usotro shoved Pomm against the cage, trapping the obese bajoran between his enormous green hand and the iron bars. "You are not getting away, fat one.."

"My wife taught me a human saying," said Pomm, almost pleasantly. "Monkey see…" he shoved his left hand deep into the orion's right side - the exact place he had just seen Dr. Tali Shae use… Pomm's voice dropped an octave and his face grew angry… "Monkey do!" He twisted hard both directions and giant, muscle-bound orion collapsed.

"One of these days I'm going to have to get Oarama to tell me what a monkey is…"

.  
16.12


	14. Ep 16x13: The Market (Part 2)

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode 16: Slavers  
Scene 13: The Market (Part 2 of 2)  
.

16.13  
The Market (Part 2 of 2)  
.

Tali Shae pulled hard and stepped back. The auctioneer crashed to the floor. The other muscular orion from the Usotro took two steps toward her, then found Tolon Reeves hanging onto his back, the small wrestler's left arm wrapped tightly around the giant's neck, choking him. The muscular orion felt around for Tolon's hand - grasped the ensign's little finger and pulled hard, breaking the finger.

"THAT HURT!" Tolon shouted. He splayed the fingers of his right hand against the back of the giant's bald head and pushed - his left arm tightening even more.

In desperation, the giant grasped Tolon's left hand, crushing it in his enormous hand. But he still couldn't breathe and even as Tolon screamed, his left arm kept tightening until the giant dropped to his knees, then sagged to the floor, unconscious.

.

As dangerous as the gigantic orion males were, orion females, no larger than average size for human females, were far more dangerous. Trained dancers, they had tremendous strength and control in their legs and their art doubled as a martial art form with impressive kicks, emphasizing the power of their legs. But even four such fighters were no match for Rumi Grace and Ranni Neivi. The betazoid tactical specialists had developed blocks specifically against this martial art form. The orion slave-girls fought with elegance, grace, control and tremendous power.

They were met with ferocious, unrelenting violent aggression. Rumi and Ranni kept close – in their opponents' faces – striking with fists, knees and elbows, never allowing them the distance they needed for their kicking style to be effective. Following their krav maga training, they used their entire surroundings – any wall or tool was weaponized against the orion women.

Ranni grabbed a fistful of her opponent's hair and slammed the woman's head into a pole. From behind, another of the green-skinned slave-girls returned the favor, grabbing a fistful of Ranni's hair, only to be amazed as the implants easily pulled free out of Ranni's scalp. Before the orion slave-girl could recover from the shock, Ranni whirled, closed and landed more than a dozen blows at close range before driving her opponent into a wall, grabbing the orion woman's face with both hands and smacking her head sharply against the wall. The orion slid, senseless, to the floor, still clutching a fistful of Ranni's hair implants.

.

Buyers and slaves ran panicked in every direction, some encountering resistance from other orions, but most just getting in one another's way.

Even as Tolon Reeves, Tali Shae, Ranni Neivi and Rumi Grace shook themselves free from their initial attackers, well over a dozen more of the green-skinned slavers – powerful giant orion males and disciplined orion slave-girl dancers – raced to engage the Hunter's task force…

.  
.

Into the midst of all this chaos, Pomm Irons released an enraged, giant klingon warrior.

.  
.

Krull had no less than five compliance implants on his neck - and it took all of them to deliver enough pain to keep him subdued. Pomm had figured out how to disarm these and once they had fallen from Krull's neck, Pomm got the cage door unlocked. He needn't have bothered.

.

With a deafening, throaty howl of rage, Krull, considerably taller and heavier than even the giant David Pepper, ripped the cage door off its hinges and used it as a weapon, swatting giant orion males with it as if they were flies…

.

A few violent minutes later, the remaining orions were quickly and systematically stunned by phaser blasts from the ports Tolon had sent Dasare Eba and Veri Geki to capture. The two betazoid tactical specialists had evidently won their way to the ports and taken the phasers from the snipers hidden behind them.

.

Few who were not directly involved in the fighting remained to observe the aftermath. A majority of the buyers had made good their exit - some of them with the slaves they had purchased – others abandoning the slaves they had brought with them. What few orion slavers had not been felled by either Krull or the Hunter's crew had also fled. Pomm Irons set about freeing the remaining slaves. He turned to Dr. Tali Shae.

.

"I hope your ship has sufficient space for all of these," Pomm said, looking around.

"How did you know the codes?" asked Tolon, indicating the slaver's control module in Pomm's hand. "Enter the wrong combination and you kill yourself - or the other slaves."

Pomm focused on Ensign Tolon's mangled left hand: "Your hand!"

Tolon Reeves lifted his shattered left hand, looked at it in some confusion. "It registers as pain, but it doesn't really hurt. I suppose I need to get that fixed."

Pomm kept staring at Tolon as if he had just met a madman.

Reeves flopped his useless left hand almost comically, spraying dark red blood. "It's a prosthetic."

"But… blood…"

"Hydraulic fluid. Matched to the color and appearance of my blood. Imagine if I got a small cut and you saw my hand bleeding glowing purple goo?" Tolon pointed at the control module again. "So how did you know how to work that?"

Pomm looked at the control module still in his hand. "I watched them. It was easy enough to figure out." He pocketed the controller.

.

"Ahhh… Monkey see, monkey do…" said Reeves in his sing-song, Bangaloren accent.

"Yeah… That… What's a monkey?"

Tolon lifted his left hand as if to explain: "It's…" He got distracted by the mangled condition of his prosthetic hand… "It's…"

.

Pomm had already returned his attention to Tali Shae. "So how is this going to work?" He made a vague gesture at the large number of people in the room trying to organize themselves.

"The romulan is coming with us," Tali responded. "She keeps the romulans. I have no idea why she bought them and I don't care. The ferengi are coming and they keep theirs. The kid with the nausicaans didn't make any purchases. The orions that came with us stay here – they're both unconscious..." Tali Shae looked at the motionless form of the orion who had assaulted Pomm. "Or dead… The rest of the slaves – including Krull here – they come with us. Damon Trock encouraged me to purchase more than just you. As far as I'm concerned, we just bought all of them. He'll just have to find room for them until we can drop them off on Rigel IV - that's the closest federation planet and there are Irons who live there. They can manage getting these people back to their families."

"I have to get a message to Minerva. Is she headed to the Badlands?" Pomm asked.

"Yes. I will arrange for you to send it as soon as we board the Usotro," said Tali.

"Wise old Damon Trock," said Pomm. "He's amassed far more wealth than most ferengi. He learned how to work with my family. Follows the letter of the law. Doesn't play stupid games. Cautious."

.  
16.13


	15. Ep 16x14: The Badlands

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 14: The Badlands  
.

16.14  
The Badlands  
.

Ships in the Badlands typically left communication range within moments of entering the plasma fields. The walls and tornadoes of raging plasma storms interfered with communication. But with more than 400 probes launched from the U.S.S. Galaxy already coursing through the Badlands and hundreds more probes being manufactured and launched daily, signals could be relayed from the U.S.S. Hunter back to the Galaxy, on station just outside the Badlands.

The Galaxy, an aging Galaxy class ship – the first and namesake of its class – was far too large to enter the Badlands. But with the recent refurbishment, it contained several factories and housed hundreds of workers who were now dedicated to building more probes. And they were needed.

Orion slavers were still active inside the badlands and whenever one of their interceptors or their small marauder class ships encountered the probes, they would destroy them to avoid being tracked. In response, the Galaxy created a new class of hunter probe that, on encountering an orion ship or interceptor in the Badlands, would drop a signal buoy and then engage in a collision course with the orion vessel and detonate a small thermonuclear bomb against its hull. Since it was dangerous for ships to use shields in the plasma fields (shields tended to attract the blazing plasma) these bombs were extremely dangerous to the orion vessels even if they detonated within a few hundred meters.

.

The U.S.S. Hunter had been navigating the Badlands for two days. In order to better negotiate sometimes extremely narrow passages, the tactical unit was traveling separately from the platform, which reduced the Hunter's platform unit's height by a little more than two meters. The wagon and both interceptors were also deployed as these smaller vessels could thread through passages to investigate potential asteroids or look for derelict ships the two women might have found shelter on.

In this process, the Hunter's crew had rescued a small number of starving human, bajoran and romulan refugees, barely clinging to life aboard one derelict Maquis outpost or another. Many of these were badly weakened by prolonged exposure to low gravity and had to be housed in the individual brig units where the artificial gravity could be individually adjusted to allow them to gradually reacclimate to planetary level gravitation.

.

Lt. Cmdr. Mlady was in command when the U.S.S. Galaxy was finally able to relay a message from Pomm Irons – from nearly halfway across the Alpha Quadrant near the Rigel system. He was too far away for any attempt at real-time communication. Within moments of reviewing it in her office, Justice Minerva Irons ordered the message broadcast ship-wide.

The senior staff (with the exception of Mlady) was gathered in the executive conference room. Irons watched Pomm's message with them.

.

"Minerva, this is your grandson-in-law, Pomm. Your crew members rescued me and all are unharmed. We are en-route to Rigel IV. I am sending you a chart of the Badlands. This chart is out of date, but hopefully if you compare it to current mapping, you will be able to find a rogue planet named Vengeons-Roux that very few people know about. It was a secret Maquis base, but they abandoned it for logistical reasons. Oarama and I placed a number of supplies there. My wife and our passenger had Maquis flight suits. I launched them toward Vengeons-Roux. The planet is very isolated and there are no other bodies nearby. It is nearly impossible to get ships in and out of there – even interceptors. If they did not make it to the surface of the planet, they probably did not survive.

"Years ago when my wife and I stocked our hideout on Vengeons-Roux we used escape pods and beamed from them down to the surface and back up so we could make it back to the Prophet Motive. I harnessed those escape pods to an asteroid in the Back 40. There are several thousand asteroids in that field, but only one of them has a specific mass of 808,616.829 kilograms. That includes the mass of the two pods."

"That should be all the information you need to find my wife and our guest. I have a request from a friend of Pep's…"

Pomm was suddenly shoved aside to be replaced by an enormous plate of chest armor. The camera was manually angled upward and a massive klingon face revealed.

"Doctor Pepper! This is your collaborator and fellow poet Krull! Your friends won great honor in the cave of the green slavers! Especially the fat one here!" There was a slap and some loud coughing that indicated the enormous klingon warrior had given Pomm an enthusiastic thump on the back.

"Do not think for a moment this settles your debt of honor to me – it is not settled – I am now indebted to you, my friend! And I will find a way to redeem my honor for allowing myself to be captured by those quvHa' blHnuch! One more thing… This fat little bajoran has the voice of a mighty klingon warrior – I have never heard so fine a singer! And now, Pomm, my friend, let us sing!"

.

"Fade!" said Justice Irons just as the enormous klingon warrior and Pomm Irons began a surprisingly melodic, if quite raucous duet.

"That was our song!" said Commander David Pepper. "Dive Into The Sun – we wrote that…"

"Another time, David," said Irons quietly. "Hunter?"

The ship's interactive holographic avatar appeared at the far end of the conference table.

"What is the range of our escape pods?" Irons asked.

"800,000 kilometers. A little over twice the distance from Earth to its moon," Hunter replied.

"And what is the range of the pod's transporter?"

"Just over 60,000 kilometers. Sufficient for geosynchronous orbit of most 'M' class worlds."

Irons nodded. "Can they be remotely piloted – or I should say, can a pilot in one pod bring another in tow?"

"The latter would be more reliable," Hunter said.

"Kenneth," Irons turned toward her director of flight operations. "Use all six sleeping/escape pods from the flight operation lounge and both pods from the medical lounge. Select four pilots to lead this mission. Each pilot will guide a pair of pods to Vengeons-Roux. If we are very, very lucky, one of our missing persons will have made it to the surface."

"Very, very lucky?" Dolphin queried.

"There is a reason the Maquis never used those flight suits to mount an attack," Irons replied grimly. "They had a 50% failure rate. Half of the people who tried to use them either burned up in the atmosphere when the ablative part of the suit failed or plummeted to their deaths because the fixed wing failed to deploy completely – or flew off on its own. By those odds, my granddaughter and Pivin each had a 50/50 chance of reaching the surface of Vengeons-Roux alive – assuming they made it to the planet in the first place. If you can't find them alive, see if you can locate and bring back their remains."

.  
.

* _quvHa' blHnuch!_ (dishonored coward)

.  
16.14


	16. Ep 16x15: Pod People

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 15: Pod People  
.

16.15  
Pod People  
.

It took the U.S.S. Hunter another seven hours to locate Vengeons-Roux and maneuver into position to mount a rescue. It took Lt. Cmdr. Kenny Dolphin about that much time to prepare his pilots and the required sleeping/escape pods for the venture. He took out the lead pod with Flight Specialist Winnifreid Salazaar, Ensign Ethan Phillips and 2nd Lt. Gaia Gamor each piloting a pod. Each pilot brought a second pod in tow using tandem control protocols (causing each unoccupied pod to follow the exact path of its lead pod rather than simultaneously making the same maneuvers.)

Flight Specialist Dih Terri and Chief Thyssi zh'Qaoleq were covering the daisy-chain of escape pods with the two interceptors and Chief Flight Specialist Dewayne Guth was providing backup support along with 2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui and Transporter Engineer K'rok in the wagon. Guth ended up having to park the wagon outside a plasma wall that was too dense to risk the wagon, but which provided ports through which the smaller craft could travel. Only a few hundred kilometers further in, Dih and zh'Qaoleq had to bring their interceptors to station keeping. They could catch glimpses of the planet through the plasma storm, but the momentary eddies of instability left few opportunities for the pods to enter and none for the interceptors.

Dolphin, in the lead pod, was the first one through. He waited until all eight pods were in geosynchronous orbit.

.

"Gaia, I'm leaving you in charge up here with Winnie. Ethan, please beam down with me."

.

Within a minute, Lt. Cmdr. Dolphin and Ensign Phillips had beamed into the meadow that Oarama and Pivin had landed in. A number of ferocious looking quadrupeds with purple fur immediately scattered on their arrival, only to lurk in the tree line, watching curiously.

"Looks like they're afraid of bipeds," Phillips observed.

Dolphin picked up one of the abandoned fixed wings from a flight suit. "We're not alone," he said.

"I found the other one over here," Phillips called. He removed a small device from the wing. "These emergency transponders are almost out of power. I'm surprised the pod's sensors were sensitive enough to pick these up. Especially in this magnetosphere."

"We have a clear trail at least to the tree line," Dolphin replied. He set the wing down and hoisted a backpack, settling it firmly on his back. "Gear up."

"Did we really need to bring two sets of these?" Phillips asked as he hoisted a similar backpack.

Dolphin unslung his phaser rifle, checked the settings. "What are you complaining about, Ensign? If we only had one set of these I'd be making you carry it anyway…"

"Ignore me, sir, I didn't say anything. That was just my big lips flapping in the wind…"

"Survivors of the B.R. Prophet Motive, this is Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Dolphin of the U.S.S. Hunter. This is a rescue. If you can read this message, please respond. End transmission and rebroadcast on all relevant frequencies," Dolphin said.

"Confirmed," came the audible reply from the communicator embedded in his chest.

.

After a few hundred meters into the trees, the trail quickly went cold, leaving Dolphin and Phillips searching about on the hard, bare forest floor for any sign of the women's passage.

"I'm no tracker," Dolphin said. "I'm starting to wish I had brought Investigator Buttans along…"

"Tired of my company already, sir?"

"I didn't say anything, Ethan. Just my lips flapping…"

"Maybe try calling again?" Phillips suggested.

"Transmission status?" Dolphin asked. Phillips could barely hear the communicator embedded in Dolphin's chest reporting audibly to him. "My communicator is continuing to rebroadcast my call out to them. It's rotating frequencies. It can punch a signal a little further in this magnetosphere by focusing on one frequency at a time rather than broadcasting the message over all frequencies at once."

"Kenny – I think I found something over here," said Phillips.

Dolphin walked over to look. About 6" from the base of a tree, the ground had been gouged, leaving a trough roughly 2" wide and about 8" long.

"Breadcrumbs?" Phillips asked.

"I'm going to stand here so you can see where this one is," Dolphin said. He pointed with his phaser rifle. "Go in a straight line, more or less, and wave if you find another one."

Only a few dozen meters, Phillips stopped, turned to Dolphin and waved with his phaser rifle. Dolphin moved forward to join him and looked at the next gouge.

"Breadcrumbs." Dolphin said. "End transmission and monitor all frequencies for reply."

Phillips could barely hear the communicator in Dolphin's chest responding, "Confirmed."

"Who needs Buttans Ngumbo? I have an Ethan Phillips... Good work, Ensign."

.

Dolphin and Phillips continued following the trail. Through the trees, they could see the wolf-like quadrupeds tracking them at a distance – then their lupine escort suddenly melted away. Phillips put up a fist and both he and Dolphin brought up their phaser rifles.

"Ethan?" came a voice from the trees nearby.

"Oarama?" Phillips responded.

Oarama Irons stepped into the open and lowered her phaser.

Phillips and Dolphin stepped out into the clear, phasers still raised.

"You are Lieutenant Commander Dolphin?" Oarama asked.

"And you are Oarama Irons. I am very glad to see you alive," Dolphin replied. "Is your companion here?"

"She is. We encountered a small group of refugees. One of them has died since we got here. Can you transport the rest of them out too?"

"How many, including you and your friend?" asked Dolphin.

"Eleven, all told, but two are very small children and another is a small boy," Oarama replied.

"We had anticipated that possibility," Dolphin said. "We can do it in one trip, but the children will have to be sedated. The boy, too."

.

Oarama led Dolphin and Phillips to the encampment, but had them wait in the trees until she talked to the elders in the camp. The elderly romulans were quite nervous when they saw the two men in black Star Fleet JAG uniforms walking into their camp. Dolphin handed his backpack to Phillips.

Dolphin addressed the romulans. "I know you are hesitant about being rescued by Star Fleet. But no one else will be coming to rescue you. So you can come with me, or you can remain here. I am Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Dolphin of the U.S.S. Hunter. Behind me, Ensign Ethan Phillips is setting up two pattern enhancement stations. We will need the pattern enhancers to strengthen the signal so we can be beamed up."

"I have eight escape pods in geosynchronous orbit more or less directly above us. Each pod can carry two people. The young children will need to be sedated as they will be riding with our pilots in control pods and I will not risk the lives of my people on the possibility that one of the children might inadvertently come into contact with a control panel." Dolphin handed a hyposyringe to Pivin. "I have set this to deliver 2 cc's of Vsed, which is a safe amount for romulan children." He turned to the elders. "One of you must calm the children so that Pivin can administer the sedative." Dolphin pointed at the young romulan boy – a few years older than the two youngest children. "You first so they know you are not afraid. Then they will not be afraid."

The boy looked briefly at the older boy (now very much one of Pivin's followers), who nodded slowly. He walked up to Pivin and allowed her to administer the sedative. Pivin caught him as he lost consciousness and carried him to one of the sets of pattern enhancers.

.

"Winnie," called Dolphin. "You're going to have a sleepy passenger. Beam him up." The next child was beamed up to Gaia Gamor's pod. Then Ethan Phillips took the youngest child in his arms and beamed up. The oldest boy, the elderly romulans and Oarama were beamed up by twos into the vacant follow-pods until only Pivin and Dolphin were left.

.

"I have not heard your name before, Kenneth Dolphin," Pivin said. "How long have you traveled with Minerva Irons?"

"A little over a year," Dolphin replied. "I understand you met with her recently in Vulcan space. I was on Earth at the time."

Pivin briefly laid her hand against Dolphin's face. "Romulans are not as telepathically sensitive as vulcans are, but you project a very strong sense of confidence. The kind of confidence that makes people believe you. The kind of confidence that makes people believe in you. The kind of confidence that people will follow in large numbers and with great loyalty. I have only ever sensed this in people whose consciences are clean. Those people come in two kinds, Kenneth Dolphin…"

Dolphin had disassembled one of the sets of pattern enhancers, folding the tripods until they could be stored in Ethan's backpack. He handed the backpack to Pivin, ushered her into the pattern enhancement field of the remaining set of pattern enhancers.

"And what would those two types be?" he asked.

Just as the transporter cycle started to take her up to the remaining vacant follow-pod, Pivin responded: "Heroes and monsters, Kenneth Dolphin, heroes and monsters. Which are you?" she asked as she vanished in a brightly colored haze of lights.

.  
16.15


	17. Ep 16x16: The 2nd Battle for Pillo

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 16: The Second Battle for Pillo  
.

16.16  
The Second Battle for Pillo  
.

"Old Possum-Chicken won another one." The gabby Lieutenant Commander in the blue uniform was part of the U.S.S. Galaxy's medical department.

"You served with him?" asked Lt. Cmdr. Mlady.

"Let her talk!" said Commander David Pepper. "Let her talk! Come on, I want to hear about this…"

.

Several of the U.S.S. Hunter's crew members had joined a large number of officers from the U.S.S. Galaxy on the newly opened Observation Deck – a combination of what had previously been 10-Forward with the arboretum. This expanded community area combined the 10-Forward bar with an enormous open space in the middle of the Galaxy that took up two decks and rivaled the Promenade on Deep Space 9 for an airy feeling in the middle of an enormous spaceship. An open deck with safety railing allowed passengers and crew to look down into the arboretum, from which large trees grew up and had yet another opening into the deck above to stretch their canopies, which could be viewed from balconies attached to the executive and ambassador staterooms.

The old Galaxy class ships had been designed to last (with retrofits) for at least 70 years and with the most recent retrofits, which included miniaturization of thousands of the ships systems, dramatically increased the available deck space on a ship that was originally designed to be a spacious, self-sufficient floating city in space. The impact of this enormous interior space, from which on several sides outer space could be viewed through a variety of windows and viewscreens, was simply stunning. Even with all this open space in the center of the ship, improvements in materials technology, area design, emergency bulkheads and safety procedures made the old Galaxy class cruisers far more resilient, sturdier and much safer to serve on then they had been nearly 30 years ago when they were first launched.

.

"We watched it on the view screens," gushed Lt. Cmdr. Stacy Abrams. "Star Fleet Operations had information that the Nausicaan Collective wanted to make another play to take control of Pillo. So Rear Admiral Chekov deliberately left only two Prowler class ships to guard the system. The Nausicaans respect those new Prowlers – since your Lieutenant Dolphin…"

"Lieutenant Commander Dolphin," 2nd Lt. T'Lon corrected.

"Oh… really? Cool!" said Abrams. "Lieutenant Commander Dolphin cleaned their plate with just the Hunter's tactical unit up against three of their heavy cruisers."

"So Chekov probably figured they would still try for Pillo as long as they thought they would only have the U.S.S. Prowler and the U.S.S. Trapper to face, along with maybe a dozen of the old short-range interceptors," added a lieutenant in a red uniform.

"Of course he figured it out, Anton!" Abrams said. "He knew that would make them commit everything to the battle, especially with Possum-Chicken using the Milky Way to tow the Intrepid all the way back to Starbase 86 and the Victory stopped at Coridan for major repairs – they said it wasn't even safe to travel at warp 3 because it was so badly damaged at the Battle of Coridan Corridor…"

"The Nausicaan Collective should have expected it… They walked right into the same trap he had just set for the orions," said the lieutenant named Anton.

"He had the Intrepid play wounded bird with the orions. I think he was playing "wounded flock" with the nausicaans," Abrams continued. "They committed their heavy interceptors and found that the Prowler and the Trapper were really effective against them. They were using some strange new configuration called the Quack Attack?"

This drew an unexpected laugh from the several Hunter crew members at the table.

"Please allow me to introduce Chief Flight Specialists Thyssi zh'Qaoleq and Dewayne Guth," said Pep. "They're the pilots who designed the Quack attack…"

"No way!" said Abrams. "Okay – I saw it in action – really impressive – that was you two? Why did you call it the Quack attack?"

"That was Kenny's idea," said Guth.

"You call him Kenny?" Abrams asked.

"Most people refer to him as Dr. Dolphin," Guth responded.

"Okay… Well… So since their interceptors were getting torn up, the nausicaans committed their heavy cruisers – all three of them. And apparently they had learned their lesson from the last time they faced a Prowler class ship. The cruisers came in from three different angles so that no one could pull the Dolphin maneuver on them."

"She doesn't even know what the Dolphin maneuver is," said the red-suited lieutenant.

"Neither do you," Abrams retorted.

"Neither does anybody, it's classified."

"But it involved the cruisers being in tight formation. Anyway so the Trapper and the Prowler are in serious trouble, but then the Ravonnelle shows up and sends one of those heavy cruisers into a tailspin. Makes me really glad your people are on our side." Abrams lifted her glass to Thyssi zh'Qaoleq. "Those andorian phasers cut through the nausicaan shields like butter…"

"Like a knife through butter," said Anton. "Have another drink, Stacy…"

"Buy one for me, Lt. McNeill." Lt. Cmdr. Stacy Abrams huffed up a little.

Lt. Anton McNeill rolled his eyes, then gamely walked off to the bar.

"So the nausicaans, they commit everything. Nearly 40 more heavy interceptors, 5 heavy destroyers and 9 marauders. That's when the vulcans showed up. 60 long range interceptors. And Chekov threw in everything and the kitchen sink. The Bellerophon, the Valiant, oh – thank you Anton!" Lt. Cmdr. Abrams said as Lt. McNeill returned with a beer for her (and another for himself).

She picked up the narrative before anyone could interrupt, not even bothering to take a drink: "The Vox, the Enterprise, the Ajax, the Eagle, the Hornet, the Monitor, the Thor, the Musashi, the San Francisco and then, just to top it off, the Victory and the kHov Bome – both fully repaired, the Nome and the Milky Way. The Nausicaans surrendered all their ships while Rear Admiral Chekov was still warping in…"

Abrams did not notice how the officers from the Hunter started to display more serious expressions as she rattled off ship names. Lt. T'Lon, Lt. Cmdr. Mlady and Cmdr. Pepper exchanged significant looks.

"…only four casualties. Four! And we got the entire… Nausicaan… Collective…" Abrams slowed down as she realized that something in her news was seriously worrying to the Hunter's leadership.

"Commander Pepper," said Lt. McNeill. "What is it?"

"You said 60 vulcan long-range interceptors?" asked Lt. T'Lon.

"Yes – it must have taken several days for them to warp from Vulcan to Pillo," Abrams said.

.

Pep and Mlady both stood up and turned as if to leave.

At that moment the comm system on the U.S.S. Galaxy came alive: "This is Captain Janet Duncan of the U.S.S. Galaxy…" Captain Duncan had a strong Scottish brogue.

"And this is Captain Minerva Irons of the U.S.S. Hunter." Justice Irons sounded more upset than any of her crew had ever heard her.

.

Captain Duncan spoke again, her voice emotional and her usually thick Scottish accent occasionally opaque: "To all crew and passengers aboard the U.S.S. Galaxy and the U.S.S. Hunter and to all persons within range of this transmission on all subspace frequencies, it is with great sadness that I have to inform you that our greatest contributor to science, especially the science of spaceflight, and Earth's first interstellar ally, one of the 19 charter worlds of the Federation, the planet Vulcan… has fallen.

"I also must report to you that Vice Admiral Senvol ordered the evacuation and self-destruction of Starbase 18 along with all ship-building infrastructure. Admiral Senvol and a security detail of 200 Star Fleet personnel remained onboard to prevent the station and gantries from being taken and all of these personnel gave their lives in the line of duty. To our knowledge, there were no other casualties. A comprehensive list will be released once all casualties are accounted for and the families notified. The Federation Council has sent a delegation to meet with the Romulan Imperial Senate to negotiate formal terms of surrender…"

.  
16.16


	18. Ep 16x17: 2 Romulas

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 17: 2 Romulas  
.

16.17  
2 Romulas  
.

The fall of Vulcan had cast a pall over everyone on the U.S.S. Hunter. Most buried themselves in their daily tasks. Without any immediate assignment, the Hunter, traveling next to (and completely dwarfed by) the U.S.S. Galaxy, patrolled the border of the Badlands. News of the secession of Cimera III from the Andorian Empire and the declaration of martial law in the Andorian colonies on Alrond and Beta Prime made everyone realize how fragile the United Federation of Planets actually was and had been all along. More than two hundred species had joined the Federation primarily to shelter under the powerful three-way military alliance of the Vulcan High Command, the Andorian Empire and Star Fleet - which, while actively recruiting and open to all Federation members and even ex-patriots of other civilizations, remained an overwhelmingly human endeavor.

With Vulcan captured by the Romulan Senate and the Andorian Empire embroiled in civil war, more than ever, tens of billions of non-humans were now almost exclusively dependent on Earth for protection - only to find themselves terrified of deep divisions within human populations about the use of so much of the resources of Earth and its many colonies to protect not only space-faring allies, but dozens of planets with pre-warp indigenous civilizations that were completely ignorant of humanity or the many threats by other species that their unknown human benefactors had been protecting them from for centuries.

.

Oarama Irons had taken a transport to Cun Ling, where a new spaceship had been purchased for her. Pomm was to meet her in Ba Sing Se. Pivin remained aboard the Hunter and was staying with Justice Minerva Irons in the captain's stateroom. The elderly romulan woman was surprised to find herself comforted by sleeping in the bed of a Star Fleet captain. She and Irons used the bed at different times, maintaining different sleep schedules. But both women were elderly and it was not uncommon for them to share the bed while napping. Irons had always been a recluse on her own ship and spent most of her time in her quarters or her office. This threw her and Pivin, who simply never left the stateroom at all, together for most of each day.

They avoided talking about the fall of Vulcan with one exception. Pivin made note that it was the Romulan Imperial Senate Praetorian Guard and not the Romulan Star Navy that had taken Vulcan. Star Fleet Intelligence had identified every one of the 39 Romulan warbirds that had appeared in orbit of Vulcan and Pivin was able to verify that these represented the bulk of the Praetorian Guard, leaving only four of their warbirds unaccounted for.

.

"For centuries there has been a rift between the Senate and the Navy." Pivin was reclining on the couch in Irons' quarters. Justice Minerva Irons was laid back in her lounge chair, eyes closed, just resting. But the older romulan woman knew Irons was listening. She continued. "It had gotten to the point that just before Romulus was destroyed in the Hobus event, the Naval Supreme Command were beginning to openly discuss recovering the Imperial Scepter and establishing a new emperor. There hasn't been one in more than a thousand years. What most outsiders failed to realize about the Romulan Star Empire - and because we all went to great length to hide it - was that there were really two romulan cultures. A militaristic culture in the Romulan Star Navy that controlled the colonies and most of the empire, but the Senate, popularly elected, that controlled the heart of romulan culture - Romulus itself."

"And the Praetorian Guard answers to the Senate," Irons said. She sat up and poured a shot of a dark, syrupy kanar for her guest. Another for herself. The strong cardassian beverage gave off a pungent, sour, alcoholic aroma.

"Always has," said Pivin, accepting the shot glass. She savored the pungent smell of the beverage, then set it down without drinking it.  
"So if there wasn't a Romulus to popularly elect them - most of the populace of Romulus killed in the Hobus event…" Irons started.

"The Senate was homeless and losing support. The colonial romulans, who had been heavily taxed to keep the senators popular at home - were refusing to support the Senate," Pivin concluded.

"So the Imperial Senate desperately needed a new homeworld," said Irons. She drained her glass - it took a moment for the thick fluid to drip into her mouth.

"And they had been fixated on Vulcan for more than 400 years," Pivin said. "After Romulus was destroyed, there really was no potential new homeworld within the empire. Whatever colony they landed at quickly became hostile to them and the Romulan Star Navy kept the Praetorian Guard from taking over any of the colonies. So the Senate really had nowhere to go…"  
"Nowhere, but Vulcan," Irons concluded. She poured herself another shot of kanar.

"They are going to bring the survivors of Romulus to Vulcan. It won't be long before there are two billion romulans on Vulcan. And the Romulan Star Navy will help move them there, just to get them out of the colonies. That has been the real disaster going on in the empire - trying to resettle 2 billion refugees from Romulus when none of the colonies wanted them. And the Senate wasn't about to let them get dispersed - that population was all that was left of their power base…"

.  
16.17


	19. Ep 16x18: The Solution

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 18: The Solution  
.

16.18  
The Solution  
.

Ensign Geoffrey Horatio Alstars had called for three holographic clear dry-erase boards in the engineering conference room. These had replaced the clear lacquer conference table, which, like the antique teak table in the executive conference room, was also a hologram, projected only when needed.

.

But Alstars had, for the moment, given up working on his recursive warp equations. Instead, he was walking from one board to the next, randomly writing numbers and bits of equations in random places among the three boards. This was his long established method for clearing his mind and he thought of it as more of an art form than any disciplined attempt at mathematics.

He strode back and forth on his long legs, writing randomly on each board with both hands. Sometimes simultaneously, stretching his arms wide, sometimes with his eyes closed. As more and more numbers and operands and other figures appeared on the clear boards, equations started to run into each other, up and over each other, down and under, wandering off at diagonals. Alstars didn't care. He was just scrawling.

After nearly an hour of this, he stepped back to scowl at his creation.

.

"Graffiti," he grumbled. "Modern art… Insanity… I don't need tea… I need a straight jacket." Alstars chuckled grimly. "I have loaded a bushel of numerals into a trebuchet and launched them into space…" He raised his hands and his voice. "Hunter get ri.."

"STOP THAT!" came an unfamiliar voice. Alstars couldn't make out who had shouted through the equations - he could see part of a uniform. Someone short - but everyone was short around here - with a few notable exceptions. Alstars stepped to the side so he could see around his cluttered clear boards.

"Lieutenant Tauk?" Alstars asked, surprised to see the ferengi director of ground operations in engineering.

"Come here, Ensign," Tauk ordered.

Alstars loped over to join Tauk. He had joined Star Fleet for new experiences and being ordered about by a ferengi about 2/3 his height and more than three times younger than him certainly counted as a new experience.

"Look," said Tauk, gesturing toward the cluttered clear dry-erase boards.

"We're looking at it from the back. It was gibberish when I was looking at it from the front. It even has a couple of nonsense symbols…"

"Base twelve," said Tauk.

"What? No! It's just nonsense. I was just grabbing numbers and symbols out of a bag and throwing them at the board," Alstars responded.

Tauk walked up to the clear boards. He pointed at a symbol that looked vaguely like a house with a caved in roof. "Ten." He pointed to another symbol that looked vaguely like a butterfly with a knife jabbed through it. "Eleven. Then the 1 followed by the 0 is twelve." He stepped back to stand next to the towering mathematician.

"No, that's nuts, we use the letter A for ten and the letter B for eleven…"

"You humans do. Vulcans use those symbols," said Tauk.

For a moment, both mathematicians just stared at the backside of the clear boards, viewing all of Alstars mathematical doodling in reverse.

.

2nd Lt. Sun Ho Hui's voice drifted down to them from deck one: "Tommy, have you seen Geoff?"

From somewhere on the other side of the engineering deck, Thomas Hobbs could be heard: "Over there, by the conference room."

"Thanks Tommy. Geoff, would you mind…"

"Hui," said Alstars, "Come, come come here. Have, have a look at this would you please?"

Lt. Sun walked to the back of deck one, ducked into the ladder and slid down the ladder like a fire pole. Alstars had finally adjusted to this breach of safety protocols because everyone in engineering (at least those under the age of 50) did it endlessly. He had given up trying to discourage Yolanda Thomas and Kerry Gibbon from doing it when their department director and assistant director did it all the time.

Sun, only a few inches taller than Tauk, easily more than a foot shorter than Alstars, stepped over and stood on the other side of Alstars from Tauk. After staring with them at the back of the clear boards, he turned and shouted up to deck 2: "Salek!"

The engineering director, Lt. Moon Sun Salek, stepped out of the navigation/deflector control room at the front of deck 2 and looked down over the railing to the main engineering deck, two decks below. "You don't have to shout, Hui - it came through my communicator…"  
"Salek," said Sun, "would you come down here and look at this, please? Bring Gaia with you."

Dr. Moon turned to the still open door into navigation/deflector control and said, "Gaia, Hui wants us on the floor." She straddled the ladder and slid down straight through the access for deck one to the main engineering floor, followed by 2nd Lt. Gaia Gamor, who climbed down the traditional way almost as quickly. They walked over to the other officers and stood next to 2nd Lt. Sun.

After a minute of gazing at the jumble of numbers and operands in reverse from the backside of the clear boards, Dr. Moon called for the ship's interactive holographic avatar: "Hunter…"

The holographic old man appeared next to her.

.

For another few minutes, six mathematicians stood in a row, just looking at the pile of equations, most of them fragments, from behind. Dr. Sun, Dr. Alstars, Dr. Tauk, Dr. Gamor and Dr. Moon, almost in unison, slowly tilted their heads to the left at a 45 degree angle. Hunter, on noticing this odd behavior, mimicked it a few moments later.

.

"Hunter," said Dr. Moon, "what are we looking at?"

"A set of interrelated, interactive equations expressed in base 12," the pudgy, elderly-looking avatar replied.

"Actually," Hunter continued, "Unless I'm mistaken, I think it's…"

Alstars finished his sentence: "The solution. Give me another clear board…"

Another holographic clear dry-erase board appeared between the mathematicians and the original sets of equations. With one great stride of his long legs, Dr. Alstars stepped forward. He held out his left hand: "Marker…"

A holographic marker appeared in the old mathematician's hand. He quickly and deftly sketched out a very simple equation in base 12.

"That's it!" said Hunter. "That's what I've been trying to come up with all year! We can run controlled tests to confirm, but if you're right…"

"We can safely get the entire Prowler class of ships, all 46 of them, into recursive warp without needing artificial intelligence," said Dr. Moon. "And just when we have never needed a critical strategic advantage more…"

"But it's such a simple equation…" Dr. Sun objected.

"Elegant," said Tauk, "simple in terms, but nearly impossible to come by. It took all that," he waved his hand at the gibberish they had all been looking at, "all that and more to bring this epiphany to Dr. Alstars. Hundreds of thousands, probably millions of mathematicians have been looking for this simple equation and didn't find it."

"Most of those mathematicians weren't working in base 12," Dr. Sun observed.

"I didn't know I was working in base 12 until Tauk pointed it out," said Alstars.

Gaia Gamor turned toward Dr. Moon. "Weren't all those math equations we found in the library of the progenitors in base 12?"

.

Moon turned toward Alstars. "Geoff, do me a favor…"

"Sure," said Alstars. "What?"

"You know those math treatises that Dr. Carrera downloaded from the library of the progenitors?"

"Yes?"

"Don't ever read them. You're easily as smart as Sarekson and I don't want you to wander off at a right angle to reality and vanish on me. I'd like to keep you around for awhile…"

.  
16.18


	20. Ep 16x19: A Voice in the Dark

**Star Trek Hunter  
**Episode: 16: Slavers  
Scene 19: A Voice in the Dark  
.

16.19  
A Voice in the Dark  
.

Justice Minerva Irons had fallen asleep in the armchair in her quarters. Two empty bottles of kanar and two shot glasses were on the table in front of her - one empty, the other, Pivin's glass, untouched from when she had set it down earlier.

Irons' head was moving slightly. It was a deep, unsettling sleep. Somehow she was aware that Pivin had gone to bed. She wanted to wake up. Was trying desperately to wake up. But she was dream locked. Her armchair was so comfortable, but the rest of her room was so far away - so far away in the darkness that she could not see any of it. Just the table next to her with a carafe of ice water and two tumblers and another armchair, just like hers, set at a 90 degree angle.

"I don't think my next guest needs a long introduction," said the Director of Section 31 in his polished British accent. "Here at Subspace Radio Bashir, I have been simply inundated with a request to interview At Large Appellate Justice Minerva Irons, a remarkable woman who has returned to service at the helm of a starship as a Star Fleet Captain no less than four times to avoid the many expectations her family has placed on her as matriarch of the enormous and fabulously wealthy and powerful Irons family. Minerva has published a number of treatises on the finer points of pre-First Contact Earth law from several cultures, particularly that of the People's Republic of China as well as Vulcan law and several in-depth studies of the finer points of Andorian law. She has also published a history of the United Federation of Planets that, like all of her other works, misses some of the most interesting aspects of Federation history."

"Justice Irons is also responsible for missions on assignment for Section 31, the most secret organization in the Alpha Quadrant. An organization so secret that the only two klingons who have ever heard of it served as members and died in service to Section 31. So, Minerva, and I call you Minerva because we have been friends as well as co-conspirators for more than a decade, why do you think I have not trusted you with the most important operation in the history of Section 31?"

.

Irons found herself unable to answer. She did not have a mouth.

.

"That's right!" said Chief Justice Julian Bashir. "You are too personally invested. Your loyalties are conflicted. You serve Star Fleet. You serve the Tribunal. You serve the Federation. All of that, you might be able to set aside with the understanding that Section 31 also serves all those things, but we must occasionally - far more often than we want, we must make great sacrifices and it is Star Fleet, the Tribunal, the Federation, even occasionally the sacred innocents we protect in their pre-warp ignorance - sometimes we must sacrifice them too for the longer range interests entrusted to us under our charter. To preserve Federation culture - not the culture of Earth or of Vulcan or of Andor - those may have to be sacrificed too… no, the culture of the Federation itself that made the grand alliance of Earth, Vulcan and Andor - and all the other worlds who shelter under their power - possible."  
"So, Minerva, I am using this method of communication to give you instructions. I know you have languished in ignorance of our greatest and most significant endeavor. Now that it has been accomplished, you can contribute to it. But to do so, you must understand that your highest duty is to Section 31. Not Star Fleet. Not the Tribunal. Not the Federation. And not the Irons family. You may be required to sacrifice any or all of those things. Believe me, I have sacrificed. I have sent thousands of people to their deaths. I have withdrawn shelter from the innocents and seen them taken as slaves, ripped from their safe worlds, used as biological resources. I have allowed them to die in slavery and torment by the hundreds of thousands. Can you do the same?"

"Here are your assignments," Bashir continued. "You must keep Vulcan in the Federation - with new council representatives to be provided by the Imperial Romulan Senate. You must help the Romulan Star Navy to rip a world full of innocents from their homes. Not some of them - all of them. You must set a world on fire, consigning all life on it to death. And you must save another world full of enslaved innocents and bring them from that place to a new home where they will still be slaves. To do that, you must violate not only the Prime Directive - and egregiously… To get these people to give up their homeworlds to be brought into what amounts to a lifetime of hard labor, building new worlds from the wreckage of the old, you must violate the First Commandment. You must give them not just a god, but a monster. Now you may speak…"

"MMMmmmm, mmmMMmmMMM, mmmMMmMMMMHHH!" Irons moaned in a mixture of anguish, rage and terror - she still did not have a mouth.

"Oh, sorry about that," said Bashir. He waved his hand and Justice Irons found to her relief that she now had a mouth.

She took a deep, trembling breath. "Is this real? Or is this a dream?"

"Of course this is a dream, Minerva! But what in all the Milky Way makes you think for even a second that this is not real?"

.  
16 – Slavers


End file.
